'Kilri- /^  K'^;'''ti;!;''!?;i;:^'>'^^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Charles  S.  Aiken 


7a    Cia^UM    A^ 


ctj^^x^     CU^ 


CHARLES  SEDGWICK  AIKEN 
EDNAH  AIKEN 


A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING 


>3 


f4-- 


""^ 


A  Break  in  Training 

AND 

OTHER  ATHLETIC  STORIES 


ARTHUR  RUHL 


ILLUSTRATED    BY  A    FRONTISPIECE 
IN   COLOR 

BY 

HOWARD  CHANDLER  CHRISTY 


NEW  YORK 

THE  OUTING  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

1906 


Copyright,  1900,  1904,  by 
THE  OUTING  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

Copyright,  1902,  1905,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Copyright,  1904,  by 
P.  F.   COLLIER  &  SON 

Copyright,  1905,  by 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 

Copyright,  1906,  by 
THE  OUTING  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


Published  September,  1906 


THE   outing   press 

deposit,  n.  y. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  Break  in  Training i 

Between  the  Acts 39 

His  First  Race 69 

The  Quitter 91 

Left  Behind iii 

Wings  of  Clay 157 

With  the  Hounds 173 

The  Men  They  Used  to  Be      .      .      .      .201 


A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING 


A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING 

'T^HE  Elder  Halloway  was  speaking 
-■■  fast,  and  looking  very  hard  at  a  white 
figure  sweeping  down  the  straightaway 
across  the  field. 

"  But,  my  dear  Sherwood,"  he  snapped, 
turning  squarely  on  the  trainer,  "  it's  the 
only  thing!     If  you  don't " 

The  Elder  Halloway  had  held  the  rec- 
ord for  his  distance  for  seven  years  after 
he  left  college,  and  though  he  was  old 
enough  to  see  a  young  Halloway  try  in 
vain  to  get  nearer  than  a  second  and 
two-fifths  to  his  father's  time,  yet  he 
still  cared  just  as  much  as  though  at  any 
moment  he  could  throw  off  some  thirty 
years  as  easily  as  he  might  his  clothes, 
and  jump  again  into  the  running.  He 
was  the  sort  of  man  who  saw  nothing  to 
smile  about  when  each  spring  he  buckled 
about  his  straw  hat  his  old  track-team 
3 


4  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

band.  He  could  size  up  a  flat-footed 
freshman  just  as  a  horseman  sizes  up  a 
bandy-legged  colt,  and  he  knew  more 
in  a  minute  about  the  connotative  and 
denotative  significance  of  the  word  "  fit  " 
than  this  particular  trainer  would  know 
in  a  lifetime. 

The  Elder  Halloway  was  very  enthu- 
siastic and  effervescent,  and  when  he 
stopped  talking  it  meant  that  he  was  per- 
plexed. When  he  twirled  his  watch-chain 
it  meant  that  he  was  worried.  On  this 
occasion,  as  the  figure  rounded  the  lower 
turn,  so  that  the  moving  limbs  were 
thrown  out  clean  and  sharp  against  the 
dark  green  of  the  trees,  the  Elder  Hallo- 
way  stopped  talking,  took  his  watch  from 
the  outside  pocket  of  his  Norfolk  jacket, 
and,  with  much  vigor,  yet  quite  abstract- 
edly, began  to  whirl  the  chain  round  and 
round  his  right  forefinger.  The  cause  of 
the  Elder  Halloway's  agitation  was  young 
Mr.  Hollis,  who  ran  the  half-mile. 

Hollis  was  rounding  the  lower  turn 
in  a  "  three-eighths  "  trial,  and  perform- 
ing badly.     For  a  youth  who  had  occa- 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  5 

sionally  been  known  as  the  "  Great,"  who 
had  a  faded  initial  on  his  shirt,  and  the 
prospect  of  running,  within  four  days, 
what  was  to  be,  in  all  human  likelihood, 
the  last  race  of  his  life,  he  was  doing 
very  badly  indeed.  Every  eye  w'as  on 
him.  He  could  see  the  fielders,  on  the 
green  inside  the  cinder-path,  pause,  and 
he  noticed  that  the  crack  of  the  cricket- 
bat  from  the  practice-crease  over  beneath 
the  Willows  ceased  as  he  swept  by. 
Away  up  at  the  finish-line  he  could  see 
the  trainer  standing,  watch  in  hand ;  near 
him  a  pole-vaulter  leaned  on  his  pole,  his 
clothing  a  chalk-white  in  the  sunlight; 
and  all  about,  the  half-dressed  men.  who 
had  run  or  were  waiting  for  their  trials, 
stared  down  tow'ard  him  with  the  same 
critical  and  deferential  gaze  that  they 
would  have  bestowed  on  the  action  of  a 
coach-horse,  or  the  wake  of  a  racing 
yacht.  Most  of  this  he  saw  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eye,  and  the  rest  he  felt, 
because  he  had  been  there  so  many  times 
before;  yet,  though  he  went  through  the 
motions   of   his   beautiful    stride,   young 


6  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Mr.  Hollis  knew — and  gritted  his  teeth 
at  the  horrid  truth  of  it — that  he  hated 
that  track,  hated  his  task,  and  had  in  him 
that  moment  no  more  of  the  spirit  of  the 
race  than  a  mule  in  a  dusty  treadmill 

The  spring  and  lift  were  all  gone  out 
of  him.  Even  the  turn,  with  his  body 
leaning  inward  and  his  legs  eating  up 
twenty-three  feet  of  the  track  a  second, 
thrilled  him  no  more  than  the  lazy  gait 
of  a  two-mile  jog.  He  couldn't  get  his 
back  into  it.  Running  only  from  his  legs 
down,  he  seemed  to  be  carrying  his  body 
as  he  would  an  over-loaded  knapsack. 
As  he  bore  down  to  the  finish  of  the  quar- 
ter, and  knew  that  from  where  the  train- 
er stood,  on  to  the  last  "  two-twenty,"  he 
must  spurt,  he  shrank  inwardly,  as  a  tired 
man  shrinks  from  bracing  up  to  an  ice- 
cold  plunge. 

The  apathetic  "  Move  up  a  little, 
now !  "  in  the  trainer's  irritating  voice, 
rasped  him  as  he  passed  between  the 
rows  of  eyes,  and,  squeezing  his  pace  up 
another  notch,  he  pounded  on.  Theo- 
retically, he  was  merely  "  letting  out  "  a 


A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING  7 

bit — this  wasn't  a  race — but  he  realized, 
only  too  sickeningly,  that  his  arms  were 
coming  up;  that  there  was  a  weakish 
bending  in  the  small  of  his  back;  that 
his  head  was  crooking  over  to  one  shoul- 
der, with  the  cords  of  his  neck  drawn 
taut  on  the  other  side — that,  to  put  it 
straight,  he  was  "  finishing  on  what  he 
had  left."  Too  far  gone  to  ease  his  legs 
gradually  to  a  walk,  he  stopped  short  as 
he  passed  the  stone  mark.  And  as  he 
walked  slowly  back  across  the  field  to  get 
his  sweater,  a  nasty  sort  of  headachy  pain 
began  to  creep  up  the  back  of  his  head 
and  over  his  eyes. 

Now,  when  a  half-miler  goes  back  on 
a  three-eighths  trial,  something  is  out  of 
joint.  It  is  so  alluring  a  distance.  When 
you're  sent  over  a  quarter  you  must,  for 
the  moment,  become  a  sprinter,  and  your 
red-hot  fifty-four  seconds  or  so  looks  duf- 
ferish  enough  beside  the  "  fifty  flat,"  or 
better,  of  the  racing  quarter-miler.  A 
whole  half-mile  trial  comes  too  seldom, 
and  is  too  stupendous  an  event  to  be  con- 
sidered lightly.    But  when  you  do  a  three- 


8  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

eighths  trial  in  1.27,  with  the  last  furlong 
clipped  out  in  28  seconds,  it  looks  as 
though  it  would  be  mere  play  to  finish 
out  the  last  220  yards  of  the  full  half  in 
30  seconds  more,  and — voila!  You've 
beaten  even  time!  And  here  was  young 
Hollis  stumping  back  to  his  trainer,  the 
Tantalus-tremble  all  gone  out  of  him,  and 
the  black  thought  of  what  would  have 
come  had  this  been  a  race,  and  had  he  fin- 
ished it  out,  grinding  hard  in  his  brain. 

"  That  was  all  right,"  said  the  trainer, 
in  that  slow,  grieved,  forbearing  tone  of 
his  that  was  enough  to  demagnetize  a 
storage  battery,  and  that  said  very  much 
plainer  than  any  words  that  it  wasn't  at 
all  all  right.  "  Don't  be  afraid  of  let- 
ting yourself  out,  you  know.  Only  four 
days  more."  He  was  a  good  trainer  in 
some  ways,  but  he  knew  nothing  of 
fourth  dimensions.  "  Going  to  give  you 
some  good  stiff  work  to-morrow." 

''  But  I "    Hollis  started  quickly  to 

speak  in  nervous  irritation  at  the  thought 
of  bracing  up  to  another  trial  under  the 
watch,   then  wheeled  about  and  moved 


A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING  9 

away  toward  the  "  gym,"  his  spiked  shp- 
pers  danghng  in  his  hand.  As  he  tiptoed 
up  the  stone  steps  in  his  bare  feet,  the 
baseball  squad  —  bronzed,  bare-armed, 
rank  with  vigor  and  the  zest  of  sport — 
clattered  out  upon  him.  He  drew  aside, 
grinning  wanly  as  a  man  he  knew,  bla- 
tant in  his  coppery  bloom,  made  a  pass 
at  him  with  a  cleated  shoe. 

"  Pish !  "  chirped  the  man,  sweetly. 

"Go  zvan!"  grunted  Mollis,  in  a  rau- 
cous voice,  just  as  though  he  felt  that 
way.  And  going  a  bit  hollow  inside  as  he 
thought  how  his  words  lied,  he  pattered 
into  the  empty,  lonely  "  gym,"  where  the 
sweet  day  was  smothered  in  a  thick  at- 
mosphere of  oily  leather  and  sweaty 
clothes. 

The  cold  shower  only  irritated  him. 
On  the  way  to  the  training-table  he 
caught  sight  of  his  room-mate,  Longacre, 
and  the  rest  of  the  crew-men,  loafing 
across  the  Square,  in  their  flannels,  fairly 
lazy  with  strength  and  saturated  with  the 
salt  air  and  sunshine  of  their  six-mile 
pull    along    the    Charles.      That    rather 


10  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

rubbed  it  in.  Pretending  not  to  see,  he 
turned  sharply  to  the  left  and  walked  on 
toward  Beck  alone. 

For  dinner,  in  the  lifeless  sultry  June 
twilight,  there  was  warm  tomato-soup 
and  warm  roast-beef  and  warm  rice- 
pudding.  And  the  plates  were  thick. 
And  the  freshman  "  miler "  with  the 
black  wiry  hair  and  the  horse-teeth 
crunched  and  gnawed  and  licked  his 
chops,  and  neighed  for  very  joy  of  feed- 
ing. Over  the  unpadded  jangling  table 
glimmered  a  vision  of  a  green  arbor,  from 
which  one  saw  trees  and  a  quiet  river, 
of  a  snowy  cloth,  and  things  crisp,  fruity, 
and  cold — glimmered  and  vanished  in  the 
jangle.  Hollis  sniffed,  nibbled,  and 
pushed  away. 

With  nerves  a  bit  on  edge,  very  alert, 
sleepless,  yet  with  the  feverish  stubborn- 
ness of  the  stale  athlete  sticking  to  his 
rules,  he  turned  into  bed  as  the  clocks 
were  tolling  ten.  It  was  very  hot  in  the 
room,  the  straw  matting  smelled  of  heat, 
and  over  from  the  Square  came  the  ris- 
ing and  falling  whirr  of  the  trolley-cars 


A   BREAK   IN  TRAINING  ii 

as  they  swept  toward  and  out  from  town. 
On  the  ceiling  was  a  patch  of  yellow 
thrown  there  from  the  Yard  lamp,  and 
through  the  door  as  he  lay  there  he  could 
see,  out  beyond  the  open  study  window, 
the  moonshine  in  the  elms.  Somewhere 
below,  Longacre — the  crew  hadn't  begun 
strict  training  yet — and  the  rest  were 
singing : 

"  I  h-a-ve  to  go  to  be-e-d  by  day — 
And  does — it  not — seem  hard — to  you, 
When  all — the  sky — is  clear — and  bloo — oo — " 

He  stood  it  for  a  while,  and  then  leap- 
ing out  of  bed  he  tiptoed  to  the  front  win- 
dow and  dashed  out  the  contents  of  a 
water-pitcher.  The  torturers  scattered, 
laughing,  and  with  arms  about  each 
other's  shoulders  loafed  away. 

But  after  he  had  flung  himself  down 
again  he  could  hear  them,  from  far  across 
the  Yard,  mockingly  fling  back : 

"  Hear  the  grown-up  people's  feet 
Still  going  past  me  on  the  street — 
And  I — should  like — so — so — o  much  to  play. 
I  have — to  go — to  be-e-ed — by  day." 


12  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Hollis  didn't  know  that  he  had  slept  at 
all,  until  he  noticed  that  the  whirr  of  the 
trolley-cars  had  grown  to  the  locust-like 
insistence  of  day.  As  he  slouched  out 
into  the  study  he  saw,  on  the  carpet  be- 
neath the  letter-slot,  a  small  envelope, 
pale  gray  and  blatantly  feminine.  He 
turned  it  over  to  see  the  writing.  That 
Halloway  girl!  Wouldn't  he  come  out 
that  afternoon  to  do  eighteen  holes — yes, 
thirty-six  if  he  had  time — and  spend  the 
night,  of  course.  He  could  run  in  the 
morning.  He  didn't  deserve  to  be  asked, 
but  the  family  were  going  to  sail  in  a 
week  and — well,  next  year  who  could  tell 
where  he  would  be? 

Young  Hollis  got  up  and  began  to  pace 
the  floor.  He  put  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth 
and  lit  a  match  before  he  caught  himself. 
The  last  time  he  had  seen  that  Halloway 
girl  had  been  at  three  o'clock  of  a  certain 
morning  in  the  preceding  February  when, 
with  the  orchestra  playing  the  tenth  extra 
and  her  partner  buttoning  and  unbutton- 
ing his  gloves  on  the  sidelines,  he  had 
whirled  her  sixteen  laps  around  the  hall 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  13 

without  a  breathing  space,  and  not  sur- 
rendered her  until  the  orchestra  was  half 
way  through  "  Home,  Sweet  Home."  He 
hadn't  so  much  as  written  since.  That 
was  only  because  he  was  discreet. 

Young  Hollis  stared  out  at  the  Yard, 
and  the  robins,  and  the  sunlight  now  pour- 
ing over  the  roofs  of  the  dormitories,  and 
thought  very  hard.  Then  he  walked  into 
his  room,  and  glared  into  the  glass.  It 
seemed  that  he  looked  very  thin  and  old, 
and  drawn  and  hollow  about  the  eyes. 
He  was  still,  you  see,  at  that  Grecian 
period  when  straightness  of  limb  and 
bloom  and  what  is  vaguely  known  as  a 
just-off-the-yacht  air  are  deemed  quite 
the  most  important  social  assets.  He 
dipped  his  head  in  a  bowl  of  water,  and 
brushed  his  hair,  and  looked  again.  Then 
he  went  into  Longacre's  room,  where  the 
great  babe  lay  sleeping. 

"Bob,"  said  he,  "wake  up!  Do  you 
hear !    Wake  up !  " 

Longacre  opened  his  sleepy  eyes. 

"  Tell  Sherwood,"  said  he,  "  that  I've 
run  this  morning;  that  I've  been  called 


14  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

into  town ;  that  I  can't  come  out  at  four- 
thirty;  that  it's — it's  very  important." 

"  Uh!  "  grunted  Longacre.  "  Get  out 
— go  along !  "  And  he  turned  to  the  wall. 
Young  Hollis  watched  him  for  a  mo- 
ment, running  his  hands  slowly  through 
his  hair.  Then  he  scribbled  a  note,  which 
he  pinned  on  his  room-mate's  coat.  That 
afternoon,  a  good  hour  before  the  first 
runner  came  down  to  the  field,  young 
Hollis,  first-string  man  in  the  half-mile, 
was  alighting  from  a  train  at  a  station 
in  the  woods,  with  Cambridge  twenty 
miles  away. 

She  awaited  him  at  the  station,  sitting 
alone  in  a  yellow  Hempstead  cart,  and 
hanging  on  for  dear  life  to  a  bob-tailed 
horse,  who  declined  uproariously  to  stand 
on  more  than  two  of  his  legs  at  a  time. 
That  eased  matters. 

"Dear  me!"  she  exclaimed,  "I  do 
wish  you'd  hurry  and  take  these  reins! 
He  wasn't  meant  for  the  road.  He  ought 
to  have  been  born  an  equestrian  statue !  " 

Hollis  took  the  reins.  His  knowledge 
of  handling  horses  and  driving  elephants 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  15 

was  about  equally  extensive,  but  he  took 
them.  Clop-clop-clop-clop  they  went 
spanking  along  the  country  road,  with 
the  hot  summer  air  blown  to  coolness  as 
it  whizzed  past  their  ears. 

On  this  particular  afternoon,  contrary 
to  her  usual  habit  of  going  bare-headed, 
Miss  Halloway  wore  some  sort  of  filmy, 
pictury,  hattish  thing.  The  sun  glim- 
mered through  it  into  little  lights  in  her 
hair  just  the  way  it  glimmers  through 
leaves  into  the  water.  There  was  a  light- 
blue-and-gold  band  of  Persian  embroid- 
ery which  crossed  her  fawn-colored  crash 
waist  just  at  the  shoulders,  and  that 
looked  as  though  it  felt  at  home  beneath 
the  sun-pierced  hat  brim.  From  this  band 
upward  to  the  low,  loose  knot  at  the  nape 
of  Miss  Halloway's  neck  was,  as  near 
as  is  humanly  possible,  a  straight  line. 
These  and  other  details  there  were  of  a 
sort  which  no  man,  and  particularly  a 
very  young  man,  who  hadn't  stayed  out 
of  bed  later  than  strict  training  hours, 
danced,  or  been  to  a  theater  for  a  couple 
of  months,  and  who  was  rather  hungry, 


l6  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

could  afford  to  neglect.  And  so,  as  they 
whirled  round  the  gateway  into  the  coun- 
try-club grounds,  the  near  wheel  rasped 
against  the  gate-stone. 

"  Gracious !  "  remarked  Miss  Hallo- 
way,  "  you're  as  reckless  as  Uncle 
Jimmy!  " 

Hollis  laughed  lightly,  and  turned  his 
eyes  to  the  front.  Was  it  because  he  held 
the  reins?  He  had  a  feeling — one  that 
he  had  lost  in  those  last  few  weeks — that 
he  had  the  whip-hand. 

"  Tidy  little  beast,"  he  observed,  and 
he  knew  less  of  horses  than  he  did  of 
driving  them.     "Like  'em  lively!" 

When  they  walked  down  to  the  first 
tee  everybody  at  the  club-house  followed 
to  see  the  younger  Miss  Halloway  drive 
off.  It  was,  as  Hollis  was  well  aware, 
generally  regarded  in  the  light  of  an 
event.  Addressing  with  her  usual  preci- 
sion, she  swung  freely,  and,  topping, 
sliced  the  ball  a  scant  dozen  yards,  almost 
under  the  skirts  of  the  gallery.  The  look 
which  she  tossed  back  to  Hollis  would 
have  been   sufficient  to   send  him  alone 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  17 

through  half  a  dozen  Balaclavas.  With 
the  unerring  skill  of  a  man  who  had  never 
had  a  driver  in  his  hands  but  twice  be- 
fore, he  proceeded  to  drive  clean  away 
over  the  bunker  and  within  a  dozen  yards 
of  the  green. 

When  he  had  run  down  a  fifteen-foot 
put,  and  taken  the  hole  in  three  to  Miss 
Halloway's  five,  she  leaned  on  the  flag  a 
moment  and  looked  at  him. 

"  You  know  Teddy  Battell,"  she  said. 
Hollis  knew  Teddy  Battell  very  well  in- 
deed. 

"  I  had  him  out  here  the  other  day,  and 
they  all  came  down  to  watch  us  drive  off. 
He  was — well,  mine,  you  understand? 
And  I  made  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
on  the  drive  off  the  first  tee.  And  he 
missed  two  strokes — and  then — he  broke 
a  window  in  the  basement  of  the  club- 
house! " 

"Teddy  Battell,"  observed  Hollis,  "has 
generally  been  very  lucky."  Miss  Hallo- 
way's  eyes  flashed.  In  her  ethics  of  the 
out-of-doors,  a  girl's  guest  had  no  right 
to  be  a  duffer. 


l8  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

"  There  are  some  things,"  said  Miss 
Halloway,  "  which  can  never  be  for- 
given." Teddy  Battell,  it  happened,  was 
the  man  who  had  waited  that  night  un- 
til the  orchestra  had  begun  to  play  slowly 
on  the  last  bars  of  "  Home,  Sweet  Home." 

They  walked  on  in  the  warm  sunshine. 
Young  Hollis  had  known  the  girl  only 
as  she  sweetly  reigned  in  that  upper  air 
where  lights  dazzled  and  music  was  play- 
ing. He  had  never  seen  her  as  he  saw  her 
now — so  near,  so  real,  so  touchable,  and 
then  all  at  once  so  thrillingly  Diana-like, 
as  she  swung  for  the  drive  with  the 
rhythm-line  sweeping  down  through  her 
uplifted  arms,  across  her  breast,  and  out 
and  away  with  a  swirl  from  the  tip  of 
her  wind-blown  skirt.  And  even  as  his 
heart  was  leaping  at  the  swift  beauty  of 
it  he  would  drive — as  only  one  can  when 
one  forgets — far,  far  beyond  her  best. 
It  was  rankly  brutal.  He  could  not  seem 
to  help  it.  And  along  with  the  mascu- 
line fun  of  it,  as  they  strode  on  and  on, 
there  began  to  well  up  within  him  a  sud- 
den  tremulous,   half-tolerant  tenderness. 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  19 

On  the  home-stretch,  as  the  afternoon 
was  waning,  he  lost  his  bah.  He  began 
stamping  back  and  forth  through  the 
dusty  timothy  and  clover  outside  the  fair- 
green,  wondering  what  the  girl  would  do. 
What  she  did  was  to  drop  her  club  and, 
up  and  back,  swish-swish,  come  tramping 
after  him.  She  wasn't  merely  strolling, 
or  pecking  at  the  grass,  but  trudging  on 
and  on  as  though  she  were  a  brother. 
And  when  he  had  given  it  up  and  started 
back  to  pick  up  his  club,  she  just  straight- 
ened up  with  the  queerest  look  of  half- 
quizzical  appeal,  and  brushed  the  hair  from 
her  eyes.  He  approached  her.  They  had 
been  together,  it  seemed  to  him,  a  long 
while  now,  and  they  somehow  knew  each 
other  very  well.  The  girl  had  unloosed 
her  stock,  and  crumpled  it  in  her  golf- 
bag.  She  was  warm,  a  wisp  of  hair 
brushed  her  cheek,  and  bits  of  dust  from 
the  clover  were  on  her  neck  and  arms.  It 
came  over  him  very  quickly.  He  felt  that 
he  must  take  her  in  his  arms  and  run 
away  with  her — away  and  away  and 
away  over  infinite  velvet  meadows  walled 


20  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

with  dark  shadowy  woodlands,  all  in  the 
air  and  sunshine. 

"  Miss  Halloway — "  he  said. 

They  were  standing  in  the  long  grass, 
face  to  face — she  in  the  shadow,  he  to 
sun.  The  girl  looked  hastily  to  the 
ground. 

"  I'm  afraid — you've  lost  it,"  said  she. 

'*  Yes!  I  have!  I  know  I  have!  "  said 
Hollis,  looking  straight  at  Miss  Hallo- 
way.  She  lifted  her  eyes  as  quickly  as 
they  had  fallen, 

"  It's  a  pity,"  she  said,  a  little  help- 
lessly. Then,  running  on,  "  People  don't 
often  beat  me.  You  have — "  She 
moved  to  where  her  golf -bag  lay. 
"  You've  done  it  so  well  that  I  hate  to 
have  you  lose  the  hole  because  we  can't 
find — "  But  she  unbuckled  the  pocket, 
and  moving  away  just  the  least  bit  breath- 
lessly, she  tossed  back  a  new  ball. 

The  sun  was  reaching  horizontally 
through  the  elm  branches  when  the  cart 
rolled  out  upon  the  road  home.  They 
were  just  coming  to  a  bit  of  the  way 
where  for  a  good  half-mile  the  road  was 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  21 

level  as  a  floor,  when  Miss  Halloway 
dropped  her  score-card.  Hollis  was  out 
after  it  so  promptly  that  the  restless  horse 
pirouetted  ahead  a  dozen  yards  or  so  be- 
fore he  picked  it  up.  Just  as  he  stooped 
j\Iiss  Halloway  gave  a  quick  little  cry, 
and  there  was  the  sudden  clatter  of  hoofs. 
The  horse  had  bolted.  Hollis  saw  the 
cart  bounding  away  from  him,  the  girl's 
shoulders  swaying  as  she  sawed  on  the 
reins.  He  leaped  into  his  stride.  With 
his  flannels  and  sneakers  he  was — except 
for  the  lack  of  spikes — for  all  practical 
purposes,  in  his  racing  clothes.  The  glory 
of  his  strength,  of  having  strength  and 
speed  and  wind  that  another  man  in  his 
place  wouldn't  have  had,  swept  him  on  in 
a  whirlwind  of  fierce  joy.  A  desperate 
two-twenty,  and  he  had  the  cart  almost 
in  hand ;  another  forty  yards,  and  swing- 
ing over  the  back  of  the  seat  he  seized  the 
reins.  The  girl  sat  up  very  straight  with 
her  fists  clenched. 

"  My !  "  said  she. 

"  It's — all— right,"  gasped  Hollis,  pull- 
ing the  horse  back  on  his  haunches.    Then 


22  A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING 

they  went  on,  the  reins  very  tight,  young 
Holhs  grandly  silent. 

"How  did  he  do  it?"  said  Hollis 
presently.  Miss  Halloway's  eyes  came 
round  very  slowly — just  the  least  crinkle 
in  their  corners. 

"  Will  you  forgive  me  ?  " 

"Forgive?"   echoed   Hollis. 

"  I — I  gave  him  the  whip,"  said  Miss 
Halloway  very  quickly.  "  He  isn't  used 
to-  it."  She  gave  him  a  look  which  she 
might  have  bestowed  on  an  Academician, 
who  had  tossed  off  for  her  a  sketch,  or 
to  a  poet,  who  had  sighed  her  out  a  song, 
and  said,  simply:  "  I  wanted  to  see  you 
run ! 

They  drove  presently  up  the  winding 
driveway  and  under  the  porte-cochere. 
The  elderly  Jenkins,  the  Halloway  house 
servant  since  the  memory  of  man,  awaited 
them.  The  family  were  gone.  They  were 
in  town  and  could  not  get  out  for  dinner. 
Not  without  appreciation  of  the  formida- 
ble nature  of  the  situation  and  yet  serene- 
ly withal,  Jenkins  announced  that  dinner 
was  ready  to  be  served. 


A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING  23 

"  Mrs.  Halloway  said  not  to  wait, 
ma'am,"  said  he.  "That  Mr.  Mollis 
would  not  zcaiit  to  wait,  ma'am." 

"  To  be  sure,"  replied  Miss  Halloway, 
and  she  turned  to  Hollis.  "  You  won't 
mind,  will  you,  or  think  it  queer?  You 
know  you  must — that  is,  we  must  dine 
alone.  You  know  you  must  expect — 
things  to  be  different — in  the  country?" 

Hollis  bowed.  It  appealed  to  him  as 
more  discreet  than  shouting. 

The  table  was  set  on  the  rear  porch, 
whence  the  lawn  rolled  gently  down  to 
the  river.  The  sun  was  very  low,  and  the 
cool  smell  of  grass  dampening  with  dew 
breathed  in  with  the  coming  twilight. 
They  sat  down  with  the  square  of  soft 
linen  between  them  and  regarded  each 
other. 

"  I  wonder,"  began  Miss  Halloway, 
"  what  we'll  have." 

"  I  don't  remember,"  said  Hollis,  grin- 
ning, "  to  have  been  so  excited  in  years." 

"  And  besides,"  continued  Miss  Hallo- 
way, "  it's  so  important.  Jenkins  says 
that  he  has  liis  orders,  but  Fm  so  afraid 


24  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

that  they  aren't  right — that  it  may — don't 
you  know — put  you  all  out  of  condi- 
tion  " 

The  vision  of  a  certain  other  table 
clouded  Hollis's  sight  for  just  an  instant, 
and  then  the  picture  came  true. 

"  It  doesn't  make  much  difference,  does 
it,"  said  he,  tentatively,  his  eyes  loitering 
away  toward  the  river,  "about  that? 
This  is  pretty  nearly  enough — just  this." 
■  "  Oh,  no ;  it  isn't,"  said  Miss  Halloway, 
briskly.  "  /  know.  You  have  to  have 
steaks  and  red  beef — the  red  beef  of  Old 
England,  tum-titi-tum-tum — and  —  and 
r-r-raw,  carnivorous  things.  I  know 
that." 

As  she  spoke  the  self-contained  Jen- 
kins, gravely  solicitous,  set  down  before 
her  and  Hollis  grape-fruit — cold  as  the 
snows  of  the  Sierras,  ambrosial  with  sher- 
ry and  ice.  Hollis  stared  as  one  whose 
dreams  come  true.  He  wished  that  it 
were  polite  to  ask  how  somebody  had 
known. 

.  .  .  .  Afterward  came  tiny  pink 
clams — piquant,  tantalizingly  evanescent. 


A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING  25 

.  .  .  .  And  then  a  steak — such  a 
steak — with  mushrooms  and  hashed  pota- 
toes in  cream,  and  crisp,  mehing  roHs, 
and 

"  Uncle  Cyrus,  he  was  Uncle  Jimmy's 
father,"  said  Miss  Halloway,  gazing  at 
Hollis  very  gravely,  "  spent  six  months 
in  Andersonville  in  war  time,  and  they 
lived  on  biscuits  and  old  bones.  I  remem- 
ber hearing  Uncle  Cyrus  tell  how  they 
felt  when  they  were  exchanged — the  first 
real  dinner  they  had,  you  know " 

"  Yes!  "  assented  Hollis. 

*'  I  mean,"  said  Miss  Halloway,  "  don't 
they  give  you  anything  good  at  the  train- 
ing-table ?  " 

"  Oh,  it's  good  for  you,"  said  Hollis. 
"  It's  very  good — but  it  isn't  good  to 
eat." 

Jenkins  had  appeared  again.  He  set 
on  the  soft  linen  at  Hollis's  hand  a  glass 
— amber  of  tint,  hollow  like  a  lily,  up 
from  the  slender  corolla  of  which  bubbles 
were  laughing. 

"  It  was  my  orders,  ma'am,"  observed 
Jenkins,   a  well-repressed  but  very  evi- 


26  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

dent  perturbation  ruffling  his  demeanor, 
"  that  it  was  for  Mr.  Hollis,  ma'am. 
And  I  must  explain,  ma'am,  that  I  was — 
that  he  was — that  is,  that  Mr.  Holhs  was 
to  have  only  one  glass,  ma'am." 

Young  Hollis  would  at  that  moment, 
at  Miss  Halloway's  suggestion,  have 
drunk  treacle  with  enthusiasm. 

As  it  was,  the  bite  of  the  wine  was  the 
last  touch  to  give  him  a  grip  on  the 
world. 

Every  bit  of  the  steak  seemed  to  slip 
into  its  predestined  internal  niche.  There 
spread  through  him  that  delicious  sensa- 
tion— a  union  of  the  joys  of  the  Sybarite 
and  a  master-carpenter — of  knowing  that 
what  he  ate  was  doing  him  good.  Miss 
Halloway  was  just  scooping  out  some 
bar-le-duc  and  making  ready  the  coffee 
— the  fragrance  of  coffee  in  the  open  air 
— when  the  Elder  Halloway,  in  riding 
clothes,  strolled  across  the  lawn. 

"  Well,  well.  Holly !  You  here !  "  said 
he.  "  He's  letting  you  knock  off  toward 
the  end,  is  he?  " 

Hollis  suddenly  felt  everything  going 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  27 

out  from  under  him.  Here  he  was  caught 
red-handed — a  traitor. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  hastily.  "  I — you  see, 
I  ran  this  morning." 

"  Yes — yes — to  be  sure.  Never  thought 
of  that.  Sorry  wasn't  here  when  you 
came.  Working  inside  all  day — lot  of 
stuff  piled  up — no  day  for  that  sort  of 
thing — had  to  walk  me  round  a  bit — came 
over  here.    Fine  sunset  that  was  to-night 

— fine — but "  The  elder  man  beamed 

on  the  younger.  "  Wish  I  could  get  up  a 
complexion  like  yours.  No  need  of  walk- 
in'  for  you.  Just  look  at  him,  little  sister 
— doesn't  he  look  fit?  " 

Hollis  was  laughing.  He  nodded  to- 
ward the  lawn  and  the  river  where  the 
green  of  the  willows  was  darkening  to 
black. 

"  Don't  wonder,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Wonder !  No — don't  wonder  at  any- 
thing— chap  of  your  age!  I  saw  your 
three-eighths  yesterday " 

"  Really,"  said  young  Hollis,  turning 
f|uickly  about.     "  I  wasn't — a " 

"  Oh,  of  course,  I  know.     Not  letting 


28  A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING 

yourself  out.     I  could  see  that  all  right. 
Quite  right,  too." 

*'  But  you  don't  see,"  said  Hollis.  "  I 
was." 

"  Oh,  no !  No,  no,  no !  Don't  believe 
that.  You  were  slipping  along  too  easily 
for  that.  Gazelle — Empire  State — Deer- 
foot — you  remember  Deerfoot,  the  Sha- 
wanoe — just  like  that." 

"  Well,"  said  Hollis,  "  I  wish " 

"  Wish  you  could  have  seen  yourself? 
Yes,  I  know.  Bring  my  camera  over  Fri- 
day. Muot  have  your  picture  running. 
Last  race  and  all  that,  you  know — '  how 
fine  he  looks !  '  Of  course,  a  man  never 
knows  himself.  When  he's  got  his  spikes 
on  seems  just  hard  work " 

"  Um,"  assented  Hollis,  nodding 
gravely. 

"  That's  one  funny  thing  about  the 
track.  Man's  running  about  half-speed 
— thinks  he's  up  to  his  limit.  You  know 
how  it  is.  Gets  a  bit  blowed — bet  you 
felt  that  way  going  down  the  third  two- 
twenty  —  when  he's  running  alone. 
Thinks  he  couldn't  move  up  an  inch — 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  29 

you  know  the  place,  just  in  front  of  the 
Carey  steps.  Gets  in  a  race  and,  by  jim- 
iny,  goes  twice  as  fast,  and  never  turns 
a  hair.  That's  the  way  I  was."  For  so 
knowing  a  man  this  was  a  strange  opti- 
mism. HolHs  smiled  in  somewhat  depre- 
cating amusement. 

"  Man  that  held  his  record  for  seven 
years!  "  said  he. 

"  Right  you  are.  Oh,  yes,  I  was — real- 
ly. Always  went  away  down  in  last 
two  weeks — blue — no — black!  'Way  be- 
low the  surface!  Went  in  and  by  jim- 
iny,  always  won !  "  The  Elder  Halloway 
slapped  his  knee  and  laughed  aloud. 

"  Yes,  sir !     Always  won !  " 

He  prattled  on  in  his  disarming  way 
until  they  pushed  back  their  chairs  from 
the  table,  and  then,  dropping  a  word  about 
taking  a  look  at  Miss  Halloway's  new 
hunter,  he  swung  down  the  lawn  and  dis- 
appeared behind  the  hedge  of  rose-bushes 
that  walled  the  garden. 

The  light  went  away,  and  the  crickets 
and  katydids  awoke,  and  the  great  moon 
climbed  up  behind  the  trees  across  the 


30  A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING 

river.        Young     Hollis     pointed     that 
way. 

"  It — it  just  occurs  to  me,"  he  said, 
"  that  I  haven't  seen  one  for  a  month." 
Miss  Halloway  laughed  Hghtly  and 
watched  him. 

"  You  poor  boy,"  she  said,  as  tender 
as  an  elder  sister. 

Presently  they  wandered  down  on  the 
lawn — the  silver  lawn — where  the  senti- 
nel elms  stood  in  high  dignity.  There 
was  a  bench  in  the  shadow,  just  at  the 
edge  of  a  circle  of  light,  where  a  couple  of 
w^hite  rabbits  were  nibbling  the  wet  clover. 
And  there  young  Hollis  and  the  girl  sat 
down,  while  the  rabbits  hopped  near  to  be 
fed — quaint  white  bundles  in  the  moon- 
light, their  soft  noses  damp  with  dew. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  read  that,"  said  Hollis, 
after  a  time.  "  And  I've  heard  him  say 
things  like  that,  too.  He's  rather  proud 
of  speaking  about  the  track,  just  as  you 
might  about  a  fresh-air  park  and  the 
things  children  do  there,  but  he's  never 
lifted  a  finger  to  help — he  could  put  up  a 
crack  game  of  tennis  if  he  wanted  to.  you 


A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING  31 

know — but  he  can  be  clever  up  to  the 
limit  making  fun  of  those  who  do.  I 
suppose  he's  right,  too,"  smiled  the  young 
man,  somewhat  bitterly,  for  this  was  a 
very  serious  business  for  him,  and  he  felt 
more  about  it  than  about  anything  he  had 
ever  been  in  before.  "  We  aren't  big  and 
smooth  and  fine  like  the  crew,  and  we 
aren't  brave  like  the  football  men.  We 
don't  look  very  impressive  in  the  photo- 
graphs, and " 

"  You  talk  as  though  I  were  a — dear 
me — a  kind  of  matinee  girl,"  spoke  up 
Miss  Halloway,  cjuickly,  "  or  just  an  out- 
sider. Don't  you  know  it  was  my  Uncle 
Jimmy   Halloway   who   ran  ?  " 

"  You're  very  polite,"  said  Hollis, 
quietly,  "  but  you — you  cannot  under- 
stand. When  you  go  down  to  Soldier's 
Field  there's  the  crowd,  and  the  band,  and 
the  real  fighting,  and  when  you  go  to 
New  London,  there's  the  river,  and  the 
white  yachts,  and  the  big  show  of  it  all. 
And  that's  what  the  crowd  sees.  They 
don't  know  what  it  is  to  swing  down  a 
lane  in  llie  country,  on  an  October  even- 


32  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

ing,  with  the  ground  still  soft  and  the 
frost  in  the  air  and  the  leaves  burning, 
and  six  miles  behind  you  and  four  more 
to  go,  and  the  hounds  'way  to  the  front 
and  'way  to  the  rear,  calling  '  Tally- 
ho  !  '  They  don't  know  what  it  is — just 
the  feeling  your  spikes  grip  on  the  cin- 
ders as  you  start — there's  nothing  much 
in  the  track  that  shows •" 

"  Shows  ?  But  that  isn't  your  part. 
You  have  the  fun.  You're  there.  You're 
doing  it.  And  if  you  do  it,  and  do  it 
well,  why  what  else  is  there!"  Hollis 
turned  toward  the  girl  and  tried  to 
fathom  her  eyes. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  ?  "  he  said,  almost 
sternly.  "  r>o  girls  feel  like  that?  Do 
you  see  our  part — my  part?  " 

The  girl  turned  toward  him  and 
laughed,  pityingly,  yet,  gladly,  like  a 
brother.  Into  the  mellow  night  there 
tinkled  an  old  forgotten  song  that  young 
Hollis  had  thumped  out  night  after  night 
on  his  banjo,  and  that  the  chorus  used  to 
sing  when  he  and  his  crowd  had  front- 
row  seats  back  in  his  freshman  year. 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  33 

"It's  Uncle  Jimmy!"  whispered  the 
girl,  lifting  her  head  to  listen,  her  hands 
dropping  loose  on  the  bench.  "  I  haven't 
heard  him  touch  a  piano  in  an  age !  Dear, 
dear  Uncle  Jimmy !  "  she  cried,  suddenly. 
'*  I  wonder  if  there  are  any  other  Uncle 
Jimmys !  Any  others  in  all  the  world !  " 
Young  Hollis  glanced  at  her,  then,  clasp- 
ing his  hands  tightly,  looked  down  at 
them  and  at  the  ground. 

"  No,"  she  went  on,  with  a  new  earnest- 
ness, yet  a  bit  haltingly,  in  the  way  of  a 
young  girl  talking  about  things  of  which 
she  was  not  supposed  to  know.  "  I'd 
rather  do  what  you  do.  The  eleven  is  fine, 
it's  more  than  fine — but  it's  a  game,  and 
you  might  win  by  luck,  or  a  trick  even. 
You  can't  do  that.  And  the  crew — you 
understand,  I  had  a  brother  who  rowed, 
so  it  isn't  as  though  I  didn't  know — 
there  are  others  to  help  you.  And  if  you 
rowed  prettily — that  is,  just  rowed  pretti- 
ly, but  didn't  pull  hard — you  see  I — I 
knew  it  to  happen  once.  He  rowed  num- 
ber two,  and  nobody  knew  about  him  but 
the  man  behind  him — the  man  at  bow. 


34  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

It  wasn't  nice.  They  won,  you  see,  and 
the  man  at  two  didn't  pull.  And  nobody 
on  shore  knew — he  rowed  so  well.  But 
you,  don't  you  see  " — she  turned  full  on 
him  her  fresh  face,  all  life — "  what  you 
do  you  do  all  yourself,  without  any  luck 
or  any  help,  and  if  you  win,  why  what 
you  did,  and  what  you  planned,  and  what 
you  felt — and  all  of  it — it's  yours !  " 

"  I  didn't  know,"  began  Mollis,  falter- 
ingly,  "  I  didn't  know  that  girls  ever  felt 
that  way — "  She  turned  her  head  away 
from  him,  looking  off  over  the  silver 
grass. 

"And  you'll — be  there?"  he  asked. 
She  laughed  a  little,  very  low. 

"  What  a  lot  you've  got  to  learn  about 
girls !  "  she  said. 

Young  Hollis  slept  that  night  in  a 
great  still  room  that  smelled  of  all  things 
sweet  and  clean  and  cool.  Vaguely  he  re- 
called, as  he  slipped  away  to  sleep  with 
the  night-breeze  fanning  the  curtains,  a 
stuffy  smell  of  straw  matting,  a  path  of 
light  flickering  on  the  white  ceiling,  the 
rising    whirr    of    trolley-cars    and    their 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  35 

clumpety-clnmp  as  they  crossed  the 
Square.  All  outside  was  the  silver  night, 
all  inside  the  coolness  and  quiet,  and 
somewhere  under  the  same  roof  the  girl 
— whose  heart  would  be  leaping  upward 
with  his  as  he  fought  toward  the  finish 
line — was  sleeping. 


There  was  tea  and  things  for  everybody 
up  in  Hollis's  rooms  after  the  games. 
Everybody  was  there. 

Over  by  the  open  window,  looking 
down  at  the  younger  Miss  Hallo  way, 
stood  young  Hollis — a  bit  pale  and  drawn 
and  shaky,  but  keyed  high  and  exultantly 
dazed,  as  became  one  who  had  gone  stale 
before  a  race  and  then  beaten  even  time, 
run  the  second  man  off  his  feet  and  into 
a  faint,  and  walked  from  the  field  with- 
out anybody's  help. 

"  And  then  you  didn't  see  me  waving 
at  all!  "  It  was  the  vivacious  Miss  Ban- 
nerly  who  insisted  on  being  heard. 
"  Why,  it's  the  same  one  I  carried  last 
year   at    New    London,    and    I   knev/    it 


36  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

couldn't  lose!  And  they  had  to  pull  me 
down — just  drag  me  back  into  my  seat 
— just  snuff  me  out — and  you  didn't  see." 

"No,"  said  Hollis, plaintively, "I  didn't 
see  anybody.     You  know  when " 

"I  know  that  you're  just  a  brute! 
They  aren't  all  that  way.  Don't  I  know 
that  they  get  to  the  last  turn  of  the  last 
lap,  'way  behind — I  saw  this  in  print,  so 
it's  true — and  then  they — I  mean  he — 
sees  a  ribbon — his  ribbon — fluttering  at 
him  up  in  the  stand — and  bang !  Doesn't 
he  just  waltz  away  from  them  all  and 
win — and — they  sit  in  the  window-seat 
after  the  race — and  live  happy  ever 
after!" 

Young  Hollis  looked  very  much  dis- 
tressed. 

"  But  don't  you  see,"  he  said,  "  when 
you're  finishing  out  on  what  you've  got 
left,  and  your  face  is  all  screwed  up  in  a 
knot,  and  there's  nothing  to  breathe,  and 
the  track's  trying  to  come  up  and  hit 
you " 

"  Then,"  Miss  Bannerly  set  the  tip  of 
her  parasol  sharply  on  the  floor,  "  why 


A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING  37 

it's — it's  just  '  fate  on  the  side  of  the 
strongest  battahons,'  and  girls  don't  ever 
help  at  all." 

Everybody  was  laughing  straight  at 
Hollis.  The  Elder  Halloway  turned  that 
way. 

"  Quite  right !  "  said  he,  with  much 
composure.  He  had  been  leaning  with 
his  back  to  the  mantel,  pulling  his  mus- 
tache quizzically,  while  his  eyes  rested  on 
young  Hollis  and  Miss  Halloway  like 
those  of  a  benevolent  and  chastened  Me- 
phistopheles.  "  Quite  right.  Miss  Ban- 
nerly.  Chivalry  is  dead.  It's  muscle  and 
wind  that  wins  races,  you  know.  And 
that — why,  that  depends  on  the  trainer. 
Isn't  that  right,  Holly  ?  Race  all  depends 
on  the  trainer !  " 

Young  Mr.  Hollis  looked  at  the  Elder 
Halloway  very  hard.  He  must  have 
thought  of  something  which  had  not  oc- 
curred to  him  before,  for  he  started  just 
a  bit  and  got  very  pink. 

"  Jimmy — Halloway,"  he  said,  slowly ; 
and  then  suddenly  going  over  to  the  elder 
man  he  threw  an  arm  about  his  shoulder, 


38  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

and  wrung  his  hand  for  all  he  was  worth. 
Then  he  turned,  apologetically,  "  Yes, 
yes — of  course,  JNIiss  Bannerly,  it  all  de- 
pends on  the  trainer." 


BETWEEN    THE    ACTS 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS 

TRAVIS  sat  in  a  big  leather  chair  by 
the  Triglyph  fireplace  nibbling  sugar 
wafers  and  sipping  Russian  tea.  The  wa- 
fers took  away  his  appetite,  and  he  didn't 
like  the  tea,  but  his  friends  believed  that 
he  could  preserve  an  unmoved  and  even 
effete  exterior  in  the  most  violent  emo- 
tional crisis,  and  he  was  determined  to 
maintain  his  reputation  at  all  hazards. 
Outside  it  was  a  dazzling  February  after- 
noon. The  track  men  were  running  on 
the  board  oval  behind  the  gymnasium ; 
the  baseball  men  were  sliding  on  real  dirt 
in  the  cage;  the  crew  candidates  were 
swinging,  bare-backed,  over  the  rowing 
machines,  and  there  was  skating  on  Spy 
Pond. 

"  We   are   trained   to   the   hour,"    an- 
nounced Travis,  tapping  the  air  decisively 
with  his  teaspoon.     "  We  are  fit  for  the 
41 


42  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

fight  of  our  lives,  and.  as  the  pugilists 
say,  we  are  bound  to  win." 

The  struggle  thus  referred  to  by  Travis 
was  a  team-race  in  which  the  four  young 
men  from  St.  David's  were  entered  to  run 
at  the  invitation  games  at  Alechanics'  Hall 
that  night.  The  race  was  one  of  the 
usual  number  of  special  team-races  of 
a  winter  meet,  and,  with  the  genial  pur- 
pose of  exciting  rivalry,  had  been  ar- 
ranged for  teams,  each  one  of  which  was 
to  be  made  up  of  graduates  of  some  one 
school  of  the  preparatory  class.  Travis 
read  this  in  the  papers  one  day  and  was 
immediately  seized  with  an  idea.  He 
gathered  forthwith  three  of  his  friends — 
Randall,  Craigie,  and  Smith-Robinson — 
and  declared  to  them  that  this  was  a  great 
chance  for  the  St.  David's  men  to  show 
what  they  were  made  of,  and  for  each 
of  them,  individually,  to  prove  that  he 
had  some  stuff  in  him. 

"  We've  been  here  now  for  nearly  four 
years,"  Travis  had  said.  "  and  nobody 
ever  heard  of  a  St.  David's  man  going 
in  for  anything  yet.    We've  been  butter- 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  43 

flies  long  enough,  and  we've  got  to  get 
out  and  do  something.  We've  got  to 
show  'em  we're  athletes,  I  tell  you,  and 
— and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  Nowadays 
if  a  man  can't  do  something — can't  show 
he's  got  the  stuff — why,  I  was  talking 
with  a  girl  last  night  and  she  said — you 
know  Teddy  Bellairs'  sister " 

"  Oh !  "  smiled  Randall. 

"  Oh !  "  cried  Craigie. 

"  Miss  Bellairs !  "  whistled  Smith-Rob- 
inson, wagging  his  head. 

The  three  young  men  from  St.  David's 
had  been  completely  mystified  to  hear 
such  unusual  sentiments  issue  from  the 
mouth  of  the  effete  Travis.  They  knew 
all  about  the  incomparable  Miss  Bellairs 
and  her  cupboard  full  of  golf  cups,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  and  now  they  thought  they 
understood.  Travis  repeated  what  this 
gifted  young  woman  had  said  to  him  and 
branched  out  into  the  benefits  to  be  de- 
rived from  manly  sports,  and  how  their 
discipline  fitted  one  for  the  sterner  strug- 
gles of  what  the  English  Department  calls 
the  outside  world. 


44  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

"  What  we  need  in  this  country,"  de- 
clared Travis,  "  is  men  of  iron.  Next 
year  we'll  be  among  'em.  And,  if  we 
don't  go  in  for  something  pretty  quickly, 
don't  see  how  we'll  ever  qualify  to — to 
direct  great  enterprises,  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing,  and  be — well,  by  dammy,  cap- 
tains of  industry  and  men  of  to-morrow !" 

Travis's  speech  was  received  with  the 
enthusiasm  which  his  three  followers  al- 
ways bestowed  on  every  manifestation 
of  his  genius,  and  it  was  decided,  at  once 
and  unanimously,  that  St.  David's  should 
put  a  team  in  the  field.  As  only  a  week 
remained  before  the  night  of  the  games, 
it  was  thought  inadvisable  to  enter  on  any 
strict  regime  training.  Besides,  as  Travis 
explained,  sport  was  fast  ceasing  to  be 
sport  in  this  country  because  of  the  un- 
seemly zeal  for  mere  winning  which  domi- 
nated it,  and  such  methods  as  going  to 
bed  at  ridiculous  hours,  eating  food  one 
didn't  like,  and  being  put  through  one's 
paces  on  a  track  each  day  by  a  trainer 
were  commercial  and  vulgar.  All  three 
of  Travis's  team-mates  applauded  these 


BETWEEN    THE   ACTS  45 

sentiments,  and  as  a  first  step  in  their 
preparation  for  the  race  the  four  young 
men  enveloped  themselves  in  their  long 
ulsters,  and,  strolling  over  to  the  board 
oval  behind  the  gyaimasium — a  region  to 
which  they  had  never  penetrated  before — 
they  stood  in  a  group  at  the  side  of  the 
track  and  studied  carefully  the  appearance 
and  motions  of  the  runners  who  were 
striding  along  bare-legged  in  the  frosty 
air.  ]\Iost  of  them  looked  so  queer  that 
the  St.  David's  team  felt  very  much  en- 
couraged, and  it  was  with  great  delight 
and  confidence  that  they  went  off  to  buy 
their  running  clothes  and  spiked  shoes. 
On  the  advice  of  Travis,  who  had  read  in 
a  book  of  training,  which  he  had  procured 
at  the  library  that  afternoon,  that  one's 
preparatory  work  should  be  taken  as  near 
as  possible  at  the  time  at  which  one  was 
going  to  race,  they  decided  to  do  their 
running  in  the  evening.  This  had  two 
advantages :  There  was  nobody  about  to 
embarrass  them,  and  in  the  dark  one 
seems  to  be  running  about  three  times  as 
fast  as  one  is  going  actually,  which  light- 


46  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

ens  the  fatigue  of  training-  and  is  very- 
stimulating.  So  rapidly  did  the  team  im- 
prove that  after  five  evenings  of  work 
Travis  said  that  he  thought  they  had 
rounded  into  form  and  that  on  the  next 
evening,  the  last  before  the  games,  they 
would  perfect  themselves  in  starts — which 
he  had  understood  were  often  the  decid- 
ing factor  in  a  race — and  would  run 
through  their  distance  at  top  speed  to  give 
them  a  fighting  edge.  This  was  done 
with  great  success  and  satisfaction  to  all 
concerned,  and  on  the  following  after- 
noon, after  a  morning  of  complete  rest, 
the  St.  David's  team  found  themselves  in 
the  situation  indicated  in  a  few  sentences 
back,  receiving  their  final  instructions  and 
watching  their  captain  trifle  with  his  tea. 

Having  arranged  that  the  team  should 
meet  at  ^Mechanics'  Hall  at  9:15  o'clock 
at  the  latest — the  race  being  called  for 
9 :30 — Travis  slipped  on  his  ulster  and, 
thrusting  his  hands  deep  into  its  pockets 
and  assuming  an  air  of  impenetrable 
gloom,  sauntered  over  to  his  room. 

"  Dammy !  "  he  said,  "  I'm  all  of  a  flut- 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  47 

ter,  I  am!  Never  was  so  excited  in  my 
life!  "  And  crouching  on  the  carpet,  he 
began  to  practice  starts  between  the  win- 
dow-seat and  the  bedroom  door — a  di- 
version which,  as  the  room  was  only  about 
fifteen  feet  wide,  was  less  practical  than 
hazardous.  He  had  just  come  up — 
bang! — against  the  opposite  wall  after 
one  of  these  plunges,  when  his  door, 
which  was  never  locked,  opened  tenta- 
tively, and  the  astonished  face  of  an 
A.  D.  T.  messenger  boy  peered  in.  The 
note  which  the  boy  removed  carefully 
from  the  inside  lining  of  his  cap  was 
from  that  austere  matron.  Mrs.  Beacon- 
Jones,  who  knew  Travis's  family  very 
well  indeed,  and  who  thought  him  such 
an  agreeable  youth  that  she  was  for- 
ever inviting  him,  on  the  briefest  no- 
tice, to  fill  up  a  vacant  place  at  din- 
ner. Travis  was  sufficiently  used  to 
invitations  of  this  sort  to  open  and  be- 
gin to  read  the  message  with  his  accus- 
tomed calm — a  condition  of  the  emotions 
which,  as  may  be  imagined,  was  com- 
pletely o\-erturned  when  his  eye  fell  on 


48  A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

the  name  of  the  beautiful  Miss  Bellairs. 
It  appeared  that  Mrs.  Beacon-Jones  had 
spent  the  week-end  at  The  Oaks  and 
brought  Miss  Bellairs  back  to  town  with 
her;  but  she  was  to  return  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  wouldn't  Mr.  Travis  like  to  come 
in  to  dinner — quite  informally,  just 
among  ourselves,  and  all  that. 

"  Dammy !  Well,  now,  I  say !  "  mur- 
mured Travis.  "  What's  to  do !  "  Not 
wishing  the  messenger  boy  to  witness  his 
agitation,  he  told  that  shivering  youth  to 
make  himself  comfortable  in  the  big  chair 
by  the  grate,  and  he  then  sat  down  at  his 
desk  to  compose  a  note.  It  would  be 
flying  in  the  face  of  fate  to  decline  such 
an  invitation,  and,  besides,  as  Travis  sud- 
denly recalled  with  much  satisfaction,  his 
friend,  Ricketts,  who  had  spent  a  year  at 
Oxford,  had  told  him  that  over  there  a 
man  always  went  to  a  garden  party  be- 
fore he  jumped  into  his  running  clothes 
or  got  ready  to  row  on  the  river. 

"  The  only  trouble,"  mused  Travis,  "  is 
the  dinner.  I  shall  eat  too  much,  and 
anyway  we  wouldn't  get  through   until 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  49 

nine  o'clock,  and  I  don't  quite  see  how  I 
can  feel  very  keen  for  racing  only  half 
an  hour  after!  " 

After  a  minute's  thought,  however, 
Travis  seized  his  pen  and  rapidly  wrote 
two  notes.  One  of  them  was  addressed 
to  a  certain  ticket  agency,  where  Travis 
was  well  known,  reserving  three  seats 
at  the  Mollis  for  that  evening.  In  the 
other  Travis  accepted  Mrs.  Beacon- 
Jones's  invitation  with  enthusiasm,  and 
informed  her  that,  as  he  had  heard  Miss 
Bellairs  speak  inquiringly  of  the  "  Jump- 
ing-Jack  Girl,"  he  was  going  to  retaliate 
for  being  asked  to  dinner  on  such  short 
notice  by  inviting  them  to  go  to  the  the- 
ater afterward.  Travis  added  that  they 
must  surely  not  miss  Lola  Lane's  song 
about  "  My  Congo  Waterlily,"  which 
came  near  the  beginning  of  the  first  act. 
because,  so  everyone  said,  that  was  quite 
the  best  thing  in  the  piece. 

"  I  think,"  observed  Travis  with  satis- 
faction, "  that  that  will  do  very  well.  In 
order  to  reach  the  theater  we  shall  have 
to  dine  very  early,  and  I  shall  have  such 


50  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

an  extremely  good  time  that  I  shall  for- 
get all  about  worrying  over  the  race.  And 
what  is  best  of  all,  I  shall  very  distinctly 
have  it  on  the  other  three." 

Travis  was  far  too  much  in  awe  of 
Miss  Bellairs's  personal  prowess  to  risk 
any  mention  of  his  own  venture  until  he 
felt  that  his  status  as  an  athlete  was  defi- 
nitely established,  and  from  the  easy  prat- 
tle with  which  he  beguiled  the  dinner  hour 
and  the  ride  downtown  no  one  would 
have  suspected  that  in  somewhat  less  than 
two  hours  he  was  to  appear  in  running 
clothes  and  spiked  shoes  for  the  first  time 
before  any  audience.  On  arriving  at  the 
theater  he  left  his  guests  for  a  moment  in 
the  foyer  while  he  stepped  to  the  ticket 
office  and  wrote  a  note,  which  he  asked 
should  be  delivered  promptly  at  the  close 
of  the  first  act  to  **  Mr.  Travis,  who  was 
to  sit  in  E3,  but  had  not  yet  reached  his 
seat."  He  then  rejoined  Miss  Bellairs, 
and  the  party  arrived  at  their  stalls  in  the 
fifth  row  on  the  aisle  just  as  the  merry 
villagers  of  the  royal  city  of  Bezing  Be- 
zazza  fluttered  in  from  the  wings  to  sing 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  51 

the  entrance  song  for  the  Milhonaire  and 
the  Sixteen  jMilHners,  who  had  been  cast 
away  on  their  lonely  island.  The  first 
act  was  short  and  a  great  success,  the 
"  Congo  Waterlily  Song  "  had  been  en- 
cored four  times,  and  sung  to  red,  yel- 
low, purple,  and  variegated  lights  and  in 
pitch  darkness.  The  curtain  was  just  go- 
ing- down  when  an  usher  came  down  the 
aisle  and  handed  Travis  a  note.  After 
reading  it  through  he  explained,  with  ex- 
treme politeness  and  concern,  that  he 
would  have  to  leave  them  for  a  few  min- 
utes, but  that  his  friend,  Dunster,  whom 
he  saw  sitting  in  the  front  row,  would, 
he  knew,  be  delighted  to  take  his  place 
while  he  was  gone.  Dunster  w^as  a  harm- 
less young  man  who  was  known  both  to 
Mrs.  Beacon-Jones  and  Miss  Bellairs, 
and  who  happened  to  regard  Travis  in 
the  light  of  a  hero.  "  What's  up !  "  he 
whispered,  when  Travis  had  made  his 
request. 

"  Nothing,"  sighed  Travis  wearily, 
running  his  fingers  tentatively  over  his 
tie.     "  Little  team-race  on,  down  at  Me- 


52  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

chanics'  Hall — got  to  run.  Be  back  in 
an  hour." 

Dunster  gasped  and  regarded  Travis 
with  kindling  eyes. 

"  You  don't  care  what  you  do,  do 
you?"  he  murmured. 

"  If  anything  should  happen!  "  mused 
Travis.  "  Of  course,  there  won't,  but  if 
anything  should,  you  know,  just  see  that 
they  get  home,  and  all  that,  won't  you, 
old  fellow?" 

Poor  young  Dunster  was  so  unnerved 
by  this  Olympic  dismissal  of  the  austere 
Mrs.  Beacon-Jones  and  the  incomparable 
Miss  Bellairs  that  no  sooner  had  he  sat 
down  beside  them  than  he  forgot  all  about 
Travis's  request  not  to  say  anything  about 
the  race,  and  straightway  blurted  it  all 
out  with  exuberant  comments  on  Travis's 
genius. 

"  Never  was  such  a  man !  "  cried  young 
Dunster.  "  You  see  how  it  is — some- 
body's given  out  up  there — or  broke  a  leg 
or  something — and  they  had  to  send  for 
Travis.  He's  the  man  they  had  to  have 
— only  one  that  would  do.    Here  he  is  in 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  53 

the  theater;  nothing  further  from  his 
mind  than  running — he  never  trains  or 
anything  hke  that,  you  know — note  comes 
telling  him  to  come  quick;  gets  up,  says 
nothing,  saunters  out,  and  I  bet  you," 
cried  young  Dunster  to  the  sympathetic 
j\Iiss  Bellairs,  "  I  bet  you  he  goes  up  there 
and  beats  'em  all  out,  and  '11  be  back  here 
in  an  hour  without  turning  a  hair!" 

Young  Dunster  worked  himself  up  to 
such  a  pitch  of  enthusiasm,  and  Miss  Bel- 
lairs was  so  impressed  with  the  noble  self- 
sacrifice  exhibited  by  Travis  in  leaving 
her  in  order,  so  to  speak,  to  do  his  duty 
as  a  man,  and  so  excited  on  her  sport- 
ing side  by  the  news  that  the  effete  Air. 
Travis  was  an  athlete  beneath  his  purple 
and  fine  linen,  that  when  Dunster,  in  a 
sudden  l^urst  of  executive  ability,  pro- 
posed that  they  should  leave  the  play, 
jump  into  a  carriage,  and  rush  with  all 
speed  to  the  scene  of  action.  Miss  Bel- 
lairs replied  that  they  would  be  rank  quit- 
ters if  they  didn't,  and  even  Mrs.  Beacon- 
Jones  acquiesced  and  said  that  she  really 
believed  she  would  like  to  go. 


54  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Travis  reached  the  contestants'  room  in 
the  basement  of  Mechanics'  Hall  at  9 125 
o'clock.  The  place  was  crowded  with 
men  in  all  stages  of  undress,  and  stifling 
with  the  heat  from  the  steam  pipes  and 
the  mingled  smells  of  sweaty  clothes  and 
liniment  and  wintergreen  oil.  Some  of 
the  runners  were  stretched  on  the  padded 
benches,  taking  their  rubbing  gratefully; 
others  were  nervously  tying  quadruple 
knots  in  the  laces  of  their  running  shoes ; 
freshmen  were  having  their  numbers 
pinned  to  the  backs  of  their  shirts  with 
conscious  pride,  and  the  bald-headed  vet- 
eran from  the  Jolly  Pathfinders'  Athletic 
Club  of  South  Boston,  who  had  already 
contested  in  the  shot-put,  the  mile  run, 
and  the  handicap-half,  was  now,  with 
four  rubbers  in  magenta  and  yellow 
sweaters,  and  one  boy  \yith  a  mysterious 
black  bottle,  preparing  himself  for  the 
fifty-yard  dash.  Into  the  humid  heat  of 
this  cheerful  and  extraordinary  place 
there  came,  every  now  and  then,  the 
megaphone  voice  from  the  stairway  as 
the  coming  events  were  called;   up  the 


BETWEEN    THE    ACTS  55 

Stairs  hurried  the  fresh  runners,  down 
them  toppled  the  sick-looking  ones,  and 
steadily  from  the  great  hall  overhead 
came  the  muffled  booming  of  the  band  and 
the  stage-thunder  rumble  of  feet  tearing 
around  the  banked  and  boarded  track. 

"  Where  the  deuce  have  you  been !  " 
demanded  Randall.  "  Five  minutes  more 
and  we  should  have  had  to  run  without 
you !  "  Travis,  picking  his  way  circum- 
spectly between  the  files  of  sweaters  and 
littered  clothing,  slipped  off  his  outer  coat 
and  dropped  it  across  an  empty  bench — 
revealing  to  the  startled  gaze  of  the  sturdy 
runners  from  the  Thistle  Harriers,  who 
occupied  quarters  adjoining,  an  evening 
costume  whose  chaste  splendor  threw 
those  gentlemen  into  amazement  and 
dismay. 

"  Dined  out !  "  smiled  Travis,  adding 
a  coat  and  waistcoat  to  the  pile. 
"Thought  I'd  never  get  away!"  By 
the  time  Randall  had  recovered  from  the 
shock  of  this  announcement  sufficiently 
to  communicate  it  to  the  dumbfounded 
members   of   the    St.    David's   team   the 


56  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

megaphone  was  already  bellowing  from 
the  stairs  the  first  call  for  their  race.  At 
the  same  moment  Travis,  wrapped  in  a 
dressing  gown  which,  with  his  running 
clothes,  he  had  left  at  the  hall  on  his  way 
into  town  that  evening,  appeared  and 
suggested  that  it  was  about  time  they 
were  getting  upstairs. 

The  great  hall  was  crowded  with  spec- 
tators and  ablaze  with  lights,  and  as  they 
stepped,  blinking,  into  the  arena,  Larry 
Devine,  the  East  Somerville  Wonder,  was 
just  finishing  an  exhibition  quarter-mile 
to  the  tune  of  "  The  Wearing  of  tlie 
Green."  Rows  of  eager  spectators  banked 
three  sides  of  the  big  hall  and  crowded 
the  balcony,  and  as  the  band  stopped  and 
they  became  the  focus  of  a  vast  compos- 
ite stare,  the  four  novice  members  of  the 
St.  David's  team  felt  very  much,  as 
Smith-Robinson  confided  to  Randall,  like 
entries  in  the  poodle  class  approaching 
the  judges  for  the  preliminary  round  of 
judging.  The  light-footed  Mercuries 
who  represented  Duxbury  High,  Cam- 
bridgeport  Collegiate,  and  East  Chelsea 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  57 

Latin  lost  no  time  in  soliloquizing,  but 
promptly  began  to  act  as  though  they 
had  been  there  many  times  before.  Toss- 
ing their  blankets  and  robes  aside  they 
trotted  out  on  the  track,  and  in  the  man- 
ner affected  by  the  sophisticated  strode 
solemnly  around  on  the  tips  of  their  toes, 
to  get  the  feel  of  the  going  and  of  the 
steeply  banked  corners.  The  three  lesser 
members  of  the  St.  David's  team  fol- 
lowed their  lead,  but  Travis,  with  his 
thumbs  in  the  cord  of  his  gown,  stared  at 
the  ceiling,  buried  in  thought,  only  now 
and  then  casting  his  eyes  toward  his 
prancing  opponents  with  the  air  of  one 
picking  flaws  in  their  style  or  weak  points 
toward  which  to  direct  an  attack. 

"  Better  try  the  corners !  "  cried  Ran- 
dall, putting  his  mouth  close  to  Travis's 
ear  to  make  himself  heard  through  the 
resumed  dinning  of  the  band.  He  jerked 
his  head  toward  the  fan-shaped  white  pine 
inclines  that  curved  at  an  angle  of  nearly 
forty-five  degrees  round  each  corner  of 
the  track. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  try  the  corners?" 


58  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

stuttered  Smith-Robinson,  He  was  to 
run  the  first  relay,  and  he  was  pale  and 
quite  unstrung. 

All  at  once  the  noise  of  the  band  was 
hushed  and  the  big  hall  became  still.  The 
starter's  whistle  squealed,  and  the  first 
four  runners — Smith-Robinson,  and  the 
three  unknown  quantities  from  Duxbury 
High,  Cambridgeport  Collegiate,  and 
East  Chelsea  Latin  took  their  places  at 
the  starting,  line.  This  line  was  in  front 
of  the  main  entrance  to  the  hall,  and  they 
were  to  run  three  laps  in  each  relay,  fin- 
ishing where  they  had  begun.  Smith- 
Robinson  was  lucky  enough  to  draw  the 
pole.  Craigie,  as  they  had  arranged  over 
the  tea  and  wafers  that  afternoon,  was  to 
run  the  second  relay,  Randall  the  third, 
and  Travis,  as  became  the  originator  of 
the  St.  David's  team,  had  the  honor  of 
fighting  out  the  finish. 

"  Ready!  "  said  the  starter.     "  Set!  " 
Now,   Smith-Robinson  was  extremely 
nervous,  and  as  he  had  never  run  before, 
he  knew  nothing  about  the  penalty  im- 
posed for  starting  ahead  of  time,  and  he 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  59 

feared  nothing.  And  so  it  came  about 
that  when  the  starter  had  slowly  knelled 
out  the  "  Set!  "  he  could  contain  himself 
no  longer,  and  over  the  line  he  shot,  like 
a  rabbit  out  of  a  grass-tuft,  beating  the 
pistol  by  precisely  the  permissible  fraction 
of  a  second  and  causing  all  the  veteran 
sporting  gentlemen  in  the  hall  to  wag 
their  heads  with  delight  and  w'onder,  and 
observe  that  that  young  feller  couldn't  'a' 
caught  it  better  if  he'd  a  been  Duffey  him- 
self. The  result  was  that  Smith-Robinson 
found  himself,  after  the  mad  jostling  at 
the  first  turn,  in  the  lead,  a  position  which 
so  terrified  him  with  its  responsibility 
that,  in  sheer  fear  that  the  three  men 
who  were  puffing  behind  him  should  pass 
him,  he  ran  with  a  speed  that  no  one,  least 
of  all  himself,  had  ever  dreamed  that  he 
possessed. 

Br-r-r-r  —  thrump — thrump — thrump 
— Br-r-r-r!  went  the  spiked  feet  down  the 
long  side,  over  the  resounding  banked 
corners  and  on  again.  It  takes  pretty 
good  running  to  pass  a  man  who  has  the 
pole,  on  the  short  sides  and  ugly  corners 


6o  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

of  an  indoor  track,  and  on  Smith-Robin- 
son flew,  as  though  pursued  by  the  Head- 
less Horseman — around  two  laps,  on 
through  the  third,  down  the  long  side,  and 
all  out  and  wobbling,  with  the  three  others 
trailing  Indian-file  behind  him,  he  dived 
forward  and  touched  Craigie's  frantic 
fingers  only  a  fraction  of  a  second  behind 
the  veteran  runner  for  Cambridgeport 
Collegiate. 

"  Two  of  'em  behind  you !  "  cried  Trav- 
is, slapping  Craigie  on  the  back,  as  he 
jumped  away.    "  We're  still  ahead !  " 

Craigie  was  the  least  likely  man  on 
the  St,  David's  team,  but  in  the  instant 
that  clasped  before  the  second  runner  for 
East  Chelsea  Latin — a  grim-looking  gen- 
tleman, somewhat  bald,  in  a  green  jersey 
with  a  broad  purple  band  about  the  mid- 
dle of  it  which  gave,  as  one  might  say,  a 
touch  of  color  to  the  scene — before  this 
runner  could  reach  the  hand  of  his  own 
man,  Craigie  was  safely  away  in  pursuit 
of  Cambridgeport  Collegiate.  The  grim- 
looking  gentleman  was,  however,  not  to 
be  denied.    At  the  end  of  the  first  lap  he 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  6i 

was  on  even  terms  with  Craigie.  Bump- 
ing elbows,  neck  and  neck,  they  fought 
round  the  second  lap,  then  the  purple 
and  green  slipped  by  and  in  the  die-away 
of  the  last  lap  Craigie  just  managed  to 
beat  out  Duxbury  High  for  third  place. 

"  Up  guards  and  at  'em !  "  yelled  Trav- 
is, as  Randall  slapped  Craigie's  hand. 
"  There's  one  behind  us !  We're  still 
ahead !  " 

Br-r-r-r-r — thrump — thrump — thrump 
— Br-r-r-r!  went  the  helter-skelter  of 
pounding  feet,  Travis,  his  robe  thrown 
aside,  his  fingers  working  nervously, 
watched  the  flight  and  pursuit,  and  tried 
to  keep  his  heart  inside  his  ribs  until  it 
came  his  turn.  He  had  seen  some  track 
games  once,  but  he  had  never  seen  any- 
thing like  this — the  sink-or-swim,  head- 
long, thundering  pace,  dying  away  with 
each  runner  only  to  be  caught  up  and 
whirled  on  again — the  yells  and  the  smell 
of  heat  and  gas  and  the  drum-beat  roll 
on  the  pine  boards — this  composite  re- 
duction of  a  prize-fight  and  a  pony  express 
with  a  band  booming  away  in  the  gallery. 


62  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Round  they  came  toward  the  last  lap  of 
the  third  relay—  "  St.  David's !  "  yelled 
Travis,  as  they  pounded  by,  Randall  and 
the  Duxbury  man  neck  and  neck — and 
then  with  the  three  others  he  jumped  into 
his  place  on  the  starting  line.  It  was  a 
moment  calculated  to  agitate  even  the 
most  imperturbable  heart.  Craigie  and 
Smith-Robinson  lay  prone  at  the  side  of 
the  track.  Travis's  turn  came  next,  and 
with  half  a  lap  yet  to  go  he  could  see  that 
Randall  was  weakening.  Slowly  the  four 
drew  nearer.  Travis,  leaning  back  as  far 
as  he  could  from  the  line,  stretched  an 
arm  toward  Randall  and  called  to  him: 
"  Come  on!  Come  on! "  The  band  was 
booming  triumphantly  "  Hands  Across 
the  Sea."  On  the  runners  came,  in  close 
single  file  now,  Cambridgeport  Collegiate 
in  the  lead.  There  was  a  moment's  sud- 
den wait  as  they  struggled  round  the  last 

turn,  then 

Clang!  went  the  gong  for  the  last  lap. 
A  runner  beside  Travis  jumped  away — a 
second — a  third — then  a  damp  hand 
touched  his  and — he  w^as  off!   ' 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  63 

Clang-clang-clang !  rang  the  nervous 
gong.  A  yell  of  joy  went  up  from  the 
crowd  and  the  band  jumped  into  the  dou- 
ble-quick. Travis  was  round  the  first 
turn  before  he  even  found  himself.  It 
was  now  or  never  for  the  gentlemen  from 
St.  David's — three  men  ahead  and  Travis 
to  the  rescue.  Down  the  long  side  he 
fairly  flew.  Not  having  gotten  the  feel 
of  his  legs,  nor  of  the  track,  the  hard  floor 
seemed  to  rebound  against  his  feet.  He 
could  not  have  stopped  any  more  than  if 
he  had  been  running  on  glary  ice.  The 
steeply  inclined  corner  reared  in  front  of 
him.  Instinctively  leaning  inward,  he 
took  it  blindly — the  pine  boards  suddenly 
slapped  him  a  staggering  blow  in  the 
face,  and  he  was  sliding  foolishly  up  and 
along  the  incline  with  ten  thousand  slivers 
at  once  rushing  into  his  knees.  Travis 
didn't  know,  of  course,  that  a  fall  at  the 
first  corner  is  the  novice's  proverbial  fate, 
and  to  the  indoor  audience  one  of  its  live- 
liest delights,  and  as  the  crowd  yelled  and 
the  three  other  men  pounded  away  and 
he   scrambled   to  his    feet,   he   was   very 


64  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

certain  that  the  Hght  had  all  gone  out  of 
his  life  and  he  would  never  be  the  same 
man  again.  Beaten  as  he  was,  he  was 
bound  to  finish  game,  however,  and  be- 
fore he  really  knew  that  the  galleries 
hadn't  collapsed  or  that  there  hadn't  been 
a  subway  explosion,  he  was  up  and  after 
them.  It  seemed  seconds,  but  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  he  had  shot  forward,  slid 
twenty  feet  across  the  boards,  gathered 
his  feet  under  him  and  jumped  after  the 
leaders  so  quickly  that  the  whole  thing 
looked  like  some  sort  of  curious  manoeu- 
ver  in  the  race.  He  could  hear  the  people 
cheering  him  and  see  handkerchiefs  wav- 
ing over  the  rail  and  feel  the  air  blow 
cold  against  the  raw  flesh  of  his  knees  as 
he  got  into  his  gait  again. 

"  Keep  it  up !  Keep  it  up !  "  the  crowd 
roared.  "Yay,  yay!  Good  boy!  You're 
all  right !    Go  it,  young  feller !  " 

On  down  the  long  side  and  past  the 
starting  line,  where  Craigie  and  Randall 
and  Smith-Robinson,  raised  on  their  el- 
bows, were  staring  at  him  in  despair,  on 
around  the  second  lap  he   fought,  with 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  65 

the  distance  between  him  and  the  leaders 
remaining  the  same. 

Clang!  went  the  gong  for  the  last  lap. 
The  band  began  to  play  so  fast  that  it 
ran  away  from  the  tune,  and  the  latter, 
in  despair,  so  to  speak,  stumbled  and 
twisted  itself  into  a  knot.  Casting  reck- 
lessly into  the  running  the  last  ounce  of 
steam  they  had,  the  four  runners  fought 
up  the  long  side  of  the  hall,  across  and 
down  the  other  side.  Travis  several 
yards  behind,  began  to  "  climb  stairs." 
Randall,  Craigie,  and  Smith-Robinson 
hobbled  up  the  side  of  the  track  calling 
on  him  to  come,  and  the  three  leaders, 
close  together,  all  out  and  wobbling,  but 
not  to  be  overtaken,  hit  the  last  corner, 
when — 

"Just  like  that!"  cried  young  Dun- 
ster,  bringing  his  hands  together  with  a 
clap,  as  he  described  the  incident  after-  /, 

ward.  "  Down  goes  the  first  man  just 
as  though  you'd  knocked  his  legs  from 
under  him.  Two  men  right  behind  him — 
all  out — dead  to  the  world — Travis  had 
run  'em  off  their  feet,  you  know — won- 


66  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

derful  man,  Travis — wonderful  endur- 
ance, wind,  and  all  that,  you  know — 
down  they  go,  too !  All  in  a  heap — can't 
get  out  of  the  way!  Travis  just  misses 
'em — wonderful  quickness,  presence  of 
mind,  and  all  that,  you  know.  Hurdles 
back  man — swings  out — dives  ahead  and 
hits  the  tape !  " 

It  was  at  the  psychological  instant  thus 
vividly  pictured — just  as  Travis  stag- 
gered past  his  prostrate  opponents — that 
young  Dunster  and  his  convoy  entered 
the  hall  and  started  down  the  main  aisle, 
which  gave  an  unobstructed  view  of  the 
finish.  And  as  Travis  hit  the  tape  he 
fell  squarely  into  the  arms  of  young  Dun- 
ster, who,  in  spite  of  the  long  ulster  in 
which  he  was  enveloped,  and  a  policeman, 
had  vaulted  the  rail  and  now,  with  one 
arm  supporting  Travis,  pointed  in  tri- 
umph behind  him  where  stood  Mrs.  Bea- 
con-Jones and  the  incomparable  Miss  Bel- 
lairs. 

With  a  rare  stroke  of  genius  Travis 
permitted  his  gaze  to  fall  lightly  on  Miss 
Bellairs,  and  then  to  pass  on  as  though 


i 


BETWEEN   THE   ACTS  67 

she  were  but  a  picture  on  the  wall.  Miss 
Bellairs  beheld  this,  saw  Travis  hurry  the 
reviving  members  of  his  team  off  to  the 
dressing-room,  and  when  he  returned  a 
few  moments  later,  faultlessly  arrayed 
and  apparently  quite  unruffled,  there  came 
through  her  look  of  critical  admiration  a 
flutter  of  deference  and  submission. 

"  To  think,"  she  murmured,  half  aloud, 
"  how  I  have  misjudged  him!  " 

"  Just  telling  them,"  breezed  Dunster, 
as  the  four  members  of  St.  David's  team 
came  up,  "  how  you  go  in  for  these  things 
without  any  training  or  any  of  that  sort 
of  bother,  you  know,  and " 

"  Yes — yes,  that  will  be  all  right," 
smiled  Travis  reassuringly.  "  But  I 
promised  that  I  would  be  back  by  the 
third  act,  you  know,  and  it's  only  ten 
o'clock  now,  and  that  thing  is  monstrous- 
ly long  and — and,  I  say  we  all  go  back 
together." 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  turning  toward 
Miss  Bellairs  and  starting  toward  the 
door,  "  it's  in  the  last  act  that  that " 

The  rest  of  it  was  not  heard,  because 


68  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Travis  and  Miss  Bellairs  swept  calmly 
away  as  though  there  was  nobody  else  in 
the  world.  Young  Dunster  and  Mrs. 
Beacon-Jones  followed,  the  latter  observ- 
ing that  this  sport  seemed  quite  as  dan- 
gerous as  football,  and  that  she  did  not 
see  why  it  was  necessary  for  Mr.  Travis 
to  knock  all  those  young  men  down.  The 
three  lesser  members  of  the  St.  David's 
team  brought  up  the  rear. 

"  This  thing  mixes  me  all  up,"  said 
Smith-Robinson.  "  Certainly  it  is  most 
extraordinary!  My  man  beats  me  out 
on  the  first  lap,  your  green-and-purple 
sweater  chap  makes  it  worse  in  the  sec- 
ond, Randall  finishes  last  in  the  third, 
Travis  falls  down  and  loses  the  whole 
race,  and  yet  St.  David's  team  beats  'em 
all  and  we  get  the  cups,  and  you'll  read 
that  we  won  in  to-morrow  morning's  pa- 
pers. It  mixes  me  all  up,  and  what  I 
want  to  know  is,  are  we  athletes  and  all 
that  now,  or  aren't  we — that's  what  I 
want  to  know !  " 


HIS    FIRST   RACE 


HIS    FIRST   RACE 

THE  Freshman  was  a  boy  who  could 
have  done  some  things  very  excel- 
lently, if  he  had  not  been  too  bashful  to 
do  his  best.  In  crises  he  was  likely  to 
come  out  strong',  but  that  was  because  he 
forgot  himself.  He  had  lots  of  sand  and 
seriousness  and  endurance  as  long  as  he 
worked  down  in  the  crowd ;  then  when  he 
found  himself  on  top,  with  people  staring 
at  him  and  expecting  things,  he  got 
frightened  and  ran  away.  One  who  is 
chosen  for  the  team,  however,  may  not 
run  away.  With  none  to  help  or  shield 
him  he  must  start  from  the  mark,  and. 
on  his  own  legs,  with  none  but  his  own 
strength  of  will,  win,  or  run  until  he 
drops.  This  last  merely  shows  that  he 
has  the  right  spirit. 

Now,   the   Freshman   had   a   perfectly 
healthy   body   and    very   prettily   shaped 
7> 


72  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

muscles,  but  joined  to  these  a  set  of 
nerves  that  hung  Hke  hair-triggers.  Be- 
cause of  this,  he  felt  and  was  hurt  by 
many  things  which  had  no  reason  to  hurt 
him,  and  never  touched  other  people.  Be- 
cause of  this,  the  week  which  had  passed 
since  he  had  read  in  the  'varsity  daily  his 
name  among  the  entries  had  been  a  night- 
mare, in  which  all  the  outside  world 
seemed  leagued  in  a  plot  to  disgrace  him. 
Because  of  this,  every  time  the  cheers  or 
the  starter's  shrill  whistle  came  to  him 
where  he  lay  wrapped  in  sweater  and 
blankets  on  the  floor  of  the  locker-room, 
or  he  saw  the  runners  drag  themselves 
in  from  the  last  race  to  fall  on  the  floor 
in  a  heap,  or  caught  the  warm,  rank 
smell  of  liniment  and  witch-hazel  which 
weighted  the  air  of  the  room,  he  cringed 
and  pressed  his  hot,  sweaty  hands  be- 
tween his  knees. 

The  Freshman  stepped  out  on  the 
track  as  a  nervous  horse  steps  on  a  shaky 
bridge.  The  white  figures  of  the  others 
in  his  event,  the  half-mile,  were  already 
there,  slowly  trotting  for  a  few  rods  down 


HIS   FIRST   RACE  73 

the  track,  careful,  business-like,  and  self- 
possessed,  as  though  they  really  believed 
it  did  some  good.  With  long,  springy, 
limbering  strides,  the  Freshman  followed. 
He  held  his  eyes  away  from  the  great 
wall  of  crowded  "  bleachers,"  as  you 
would  keep  your  eyes  fixed  upward  when 
climbing  a  precipice.  The  big,  moving, 
many-colored  mass  said  nothing,  but  it 
had  a  silent  stare,  the  sum  of  hundreds 
of  watching  eyes,  which  was  awful. 
After  a  dozen  steps  he  turned  and  walked 
slowly  back.  Even  that  had  made  his 
breath  come  quicker,  and  he  tried  to  cal- 
culate how  far  he  could  go  before  his 
wind  would  give  out  and  the  wretched 
hollow  feeling  would  overcome  him.  He 
fancied  he  might  get  as  far  as  the  first 
quarter. 

In  front  of  him  the  starting  line  tape 
was  drawn  across  the  black  cinders.  He 
drew  near  it  with  a  shivery  feeling.  He 
was  not  a  coward.  But  there  was  some- 
thing so  new  and  untried  and  relentless 
in  it  all.  There  was  no  luck,  no  escape. 
In  two  minutes  he  must  cross  it,  either 


74  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

ahead,  or  with  only  enough  strength  left 
to  drop  gracefully.  The  great  crowd,  a 
blank  of  black  with  splashes  here  and 
there  of  white  and  blue  and  pink,  stared 
down  gayly  and  whispered  all  over,  like 
great  trees  rustling  in  the  breeze.  It  was 
fun  for  the  crowd,  sitting  in  its  summer 
clothes  in  comfortable  seats;  it  used  to 
be  fun,  the  Freshman  recalled,  for  an- 
other  crowd,  to  sit  beneath  the  silken 
awnings  and  turn  down  its  thumbs  to  the 
gladiators  below.  Getting  used  to  all 
this  strain,  and  learning  how  to  run  one's 
self  to  a  standstill,  is  what  wins  races. 
Many  grow  to  like  it.  The  Freshman, 
however,  was  running  his  first  race,  and 
he  looked  at  the  crowd  and  the  mark  as 
you  might  at  the  glittering  surgical  in- 
struments and  the  rows  of  eager-faced 
medical  students  waiting  to  see  your  leg 
cut  off. 

The  eight  figures  stood  waiting.  A 
clerk-like  young  man,  with  book  and  pen- 
cil, examined  the  number  on  each  man's 
back. 

"  All  right,"  said  he,   stepping  aside. 


HIS   FIRST   RACE  75 

Then  a  sharp-eyed  fellow  stepped  for- 
ward with  a  little  nickel-plated  pistol  in 
his  hand. 

"  Ready,  in  your  places,"  he  said, 
sternly. 

The  Freshman  had  the  outside.  He 
felt  a  dim  gladness.  Not  so  much  would 
be  expected  of  him.  Next  him  was  a 
blue  jersey,  and  so  on  alternately.  The 
crimson  veteran  was  next  to  the  pole. 

"  On  your  marks,"  commanded  the 
sharp-eyed  man.  Each  runner  glanced 
at  the  toe  of  his  shoe  to  see  that  it  touched 
the  line. 

"  Ready!  "—"  Set!  "  Two  of  the  blue 
jerseys  crouched  to  the  ground  with  arms 
stiffened  straight  and  thumb  and  finger 
just  touching  the  tape.  The  Freshman 
leaned  forward  and  squeezed  his  sweaty 
fingers  tighter.  His  mouth  was  like  cot- 
ton. He  listened  for  the  shot  behind 
him,  as  though  the  pistol  were  loaded  and 
pointed  at  his  back.  Unconsciously  he 
leaned  farther  and  farther  forward. 
Tliere  was  a  quick  wabble  in  his  legs, 
.'uid  lie  sprawled  over  the  line. 


76  A   BREAK   IN  TRAINING 

"  Come,  come,  come !  "  drawled  the 
starter.  "  This  is  no  fifty-yard  dash." 
And  he  lowered  his  pistol.  The  Fresh- 
man stepped  back,  much  confused. 

"  Now !    On  your  marks !  " 

Again  there  was  crouching  and  leaning 
and  stiffening  and  straining  of  muscles. 

"  Re-eady  .'—Get  set !  "  There  was  a 
tense,  tearing  instant;  then  a  short,  fool- 
ish little  click.  Someone  said  something 
between  his  teeth.  The  Freshman  had 
sprawled  across  the  line  again.  The  crim- 
son veteran  straightened  up  and  slowly 
turned  his  head.  He  looked  much  bored. 
The  starter  sighed  distressedly.  He 
turned  a  chamber  in  the  revolver. 

"  All  right !  Now — on  your  marks !  " 
"Ready!"  Set!"  The  starter  glanced 
sharply  along  the  rigid  line.  Then  his 
arm  went  up  above  his  head.  There  was 
a  snap,  a  quick  scattering  of  cinders,  a 
leaping  of  muscles  into  life,  and  the 
Freshman  felt  himself  falling  through 
bottomless  depths  of  air.  When  he  came 
to  himself  he  was  a  dozen  yards  down 
the  track,  fiercely  elbowing  for  the  place 


HIS    FIRST   RACE  77 

next  the  pole.  The  first  furious  moment 
of  pushing  and  cutting  across  in  front 
and  cutting  in  behind  was  over,  and,  like 
different  sized  stones  rolling  down  a  steep 
incline,  the  runners  had  shaken  them- 
selves into  place.  It  suddenly  occurred 
to  the  Freshman  that  the  thing  which  had 
hung  over  his  mind  like  a  heavy  paining 
cloud  had  burst. 

He  could  not  have  told  why  he  was  try- 
ing so  madly  to  pass  the  object  at  his  side, 
and  thus  was  wasting  the  strength  that 
should  have  been  saved  for  his  legs.  He 
had  no  idea  of  the  pace  they  kept,  nor 
how  long  he  could  stand  it.  The  blue 
jersey  merely  moved  faster,  and  blind  in- 
stinct urged  him  ahead.  Then  he  remem- 
bered that  the  blue  jersey,  being  on  the 
inside,  was  running  the  shorter  distance, 
and  that  there  was  a  whole  half  mile 
ahead  of  them.  There  were  a  great  many 
chances  to  one  that  he  would  have  for- 
gotten this.  The  Freshman  dropped  in 
behind  and  hooked  his  glance  to  the  num- 
ber on  the  other's  back. 

As  they  passed  the  first  turn,  he  saw 


78  A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

the  veteran  sweeping  grandly  into  the 
first  straightaway,  as  one  sees  the  loco- 
motive from  a  car  window  when  the  train 
rounds  a  curve.  From  that  steadily  ad- 
vancing white  figure,  its  legs  rising  and 
falling  with  the  regularity  of  pistons,  he 
felt  a  sort  of  attraction,  as  though  it  drew 
the  others  after  it.  Between  the  leader 
and  himself  were  figures,  but  he  did  not 
know  how  many,  or  that  a  blue  jersey 
was  second,  a  crimson  band  third,  then 
two  blue  jerseys,  and  sixth  himself.  He 
realized  only  the  inexorable  fact  that  he 
was  in  something  which  could  not  stop. 
He  fixed  his  eye  on  the  big  black  number 
in  front  of  him,  as  in  the  midst  of  a  herd 
of  stampeded  cattle  you  would  fix  your 
eye  on  the  animal  in  front.  The  rejoic- 
ing of  a  strong  man  at  running  a  race 
did  not  occur  to  him.  He  felt  entirely 
on  the  defensive. 

As  his  mind  accustomed  itself  to  the 
steady,  relentless  stride,  stride,  stride,  and 
he  began  to  feel  his  toes  touch  the  ground 
and  hear  the  breath  rush  in  and  out  of 
his  nose,  he  felt  a  new  difficulty.    It  grew 


HIS    FIRST   RACE  79 

big  and  important  in  his  mind.  The  pace 
was  too  fast. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  speed  which  no 
man  can  keep  up  for  half  a  mile.  It 
troubled  him  that  the  others  did  not  see 
that  they  were  going  at  this  pace.  It 
seemed  foolish  and  unfair,  and  he  felt 
like  stopping  to  expostulate.  Sometimes, 
as  you  stand  beside  a  locomotive,  the 
safety-valve  bursts  into  its  fiendishly 
thunderous  rattle.  You  put  your  hands 
to  your  ears,  but  it  does  not  stop.  You 
feel  like  saying  to  it,  "  Wait  a  moment, 
please,  till  I  am  ready,  then  you  may  be- 
gin." Such  was  the  Freshman's  state  of 
mind,  as  with  the  same  sort  of  irritating 
effect,  the  outrageous  pace  dragged  him 
on. 

Thud — thud — thud — went  the  feet  in 
front  and  behind  him.  He  was  now  just 
entering  the  straightaway  opposite  the 
grand-stands.  He  observed  that  he  was 
keeping  stride  with  the  man  in  front  of 
him.  He  knew  that  old  runners  some- 
times wear  out  novices,  by  thus  making 
them  run  an  unnatural  stride,    It  worried 


8o  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

him,  but  he  could  not  seem  to  change. 
His  eyes  still  clung  to  the  number.  He 
studied  it  nervously.  It  was  83,  Each 
roughness  in  the  printing,  the  spots  of 
dust,  the  threads  of  the  cloth,  he  exam- 
ined intently.  It  occurred  to  him  that 
it  could  be  easily  made  into  an  88.  At  the 
time  this  seemed  more  or  less  significant. 

The  thudding  crunch  of  the  spikes  into 
the  track  and  the  splatter  of  cinders 
against  his  bare  legs,  which  he  now  began 
to  notice,  told  him  how  fast  they  swept 
along.  Now  and  then  a  lump  hit  his  face, 
and  one,  swifter  than  the  rest,  struck  into 
his  eye.  It  scratched  painfully,  and  he 
saw  the  black  83  with  but  one  eye.  They 
were  directly  across  from  the  stands  now, 
and  as  they  filed  rhythmically  by  there 
were  pleased  little  "  Ohs  "  which  he  could 
not  hear.  Nor  did  he  notice,  except  in  a 
confused  way,  the  shouts  from  the  half- 
dressed  figures  who,  leaning  from  the 
balcony  and  upper  windows  of  the  field- 
house,  yelled,  "  Good  work!  Hang  on  " 
and  "  Keep  it  up !    You're  all  right!  " 

A  white,  flat  stone  slipped  past  beside 


HIS   FIRST   RACE  8i 

his  feet,  and  he  knew  that  the  220  mark 
was  passed,  and  the  race  was  just  quarter 
done.  It  would  take  three  times  the 
strength  he  already  had  used  to  finish. 
Just  as  the  dread  impossibility  of  all  this 
sank  on  his  mind,  the  blue  jersey  behind 
pushed  forward.  As  the  Freshman  saw 
it,  out  of  the  side  of  his  eye,  he  in- 
stinctively quickened  his  own  stride. 
Then  he  discovered  that  his  legs,  which 
he  had  forgotten,  lifted  very  heavily,  and 
his  breath  came  hissingly  between  his 
teeth.  This  meant  that  he  was  getting 
tired.  At  the  same  moment  the  black  83 
began  to  move  steadily  away.  What  was 
happening  was  this — they  were  just  en- 
tering the  straightaway  that  led  past  the 
stands,  and  the  more  experienced  men 
were  feeling  the  stimulus  of  the  crowd. 
As  the  Freshman  saw  the  number  slip 
from  him,  saw  the  wall  of  spectators 
looming  up  ahead,  and  thought  that  there 
was  still  more  than  half  the  distance  to 
run,  a  cold  fear  struck  him.  He  doubted 
tliat  he  could  pass  the  crowd.  He 
scjueezed  his  fists  tighter  and  bit  his  lips 


82  A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

hard.  He  cast  a  short,  defiant  look  at  the 
stands,  and,  lest  they  see  how  weak  and 
wabbly  he  really  was,  he  stepped  as 
straight  as  though  he  were  running  be- 
tween two  barb-wire  fences  two  feet 
apart. 

The  rope  fence  had  broken  just  as  the 
runners  had  been  sent  off,  and  the  crowd 
had  pushed  out  on  the  track.  With  cries 
of  "  Get  back !  Get  back !  Give  'em  a 
show!"  the  mass  opened  into  a  narrow 
lane,  through  which  the  racers  tramped 
single  file.  With  the  same  ceaseless 
crunch  —  crunch,  szvisJi  —  swish,  and 
breath  hissing  through  teeth,  they  ap- 
proached the  gauntlet  of  stares.  To  the 
Freshman  the  glimpses  of  faces  and  or- 
dinary clothes  seemed  far  away  and  ir- 
relevant, as  might  appear  the  trees  and 
shore  to  one  struggling  in  the  water.  As 
he  entered  the  lane,  the  stares  reached  out 
for  him,  pulled  him  toward  them,  and 
then  dismissed  him  with  a  shove. 

As  he  neared  the  upper  end  he  could 
see  the  timers  leaning  out  over  the  edge 
of  the  track,   watch  in  hand.     A  voice 


HIS    FIRST   RACE  83 

said  "  fifty-seven  "  as  he  passed,  and  he 
knew  that  he  had  done  the  first  quarter- 
mile  in  three  seconds  less  than  a  minute. 
Even  in  his  quarter-mile  trials  he  had  nev- 
er done  better.  There  was  still  another 
quarter  to  go.  The  rashness  of  the  thing- 
seemed  monstrous.  He  almost  smiled  at 
the  irony  of  it.  But  at  that  moment,  just 
as  they  passed  the  timers,  the  blue  jersey 
ahead  of  him  sprang  away,  apparently 
as  fresh  as  at  the  start. 

That  is  what  always  happens.  When 
the  distance  is  half  covered,  and  the  race 
is  merely  from  one  mark  to  the  same 
mark  again,  a  sort  of  devil-may-care 
courage  seizes  the  racers.  It  is  in  the  lit- 
tle sprint  that  follows  that  the  half-mile 
may  be  won.  The  novice  is  likely  to  be 
deceived  by  this  sudden  freshness.  He 
does  not  know  that  his  rival  is  really  as 
weak  and  hollow  as  he  himself.  The 
Freshman  felt  his  last  ounce  of  strength 
leave  him.  It  was  only  a  desperate  stub- 
bornness that  made  him  squeeze  his  fists 
and  go  through  the  motions  of  spurting. 
At   the  moment  he  remembered   having 


84  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

once  read,  "  When  you  pass  the  quarter 
mark  you  should  begin  to  pick  up  those 
ahead  of  you — if  there  still  remain  any," 
Again  he  almost  smiled  at  the  irony  of  it 
all.  Faster  came  the  chuck,  chuck  of 
spiked  feet.  They  were  past  the  crowd, 
and  rounding  the  upper  turn.  More  des- 
perate were  the  Freshman's  struggles  to 
increase  his  pace ;  and,  finally,  just  as  they 
turned  into  the  long  side,  he  felt  the  prick 
of  cinders  against  his  bare  legs.  All  his 
strength  of  will  he  centered  on  the  black 
83  in  front.  It  seemed  to  move  forward 
with  the  steady  relentlessness  of  the  rear 
platform  of  a  railway  car  which  one  is 
trying  to  catch.  They  were  now  in  the 
middle  of  the  long  straightaway  that  led 
past  the  field  house.  His  breath  seemed 
only  to  touch  the  top  of  his  lungs  before 
an  irresistible  pull  snatched  it  back.  His 
legs  were  growing  wooden.  He  felt  that 
he  could  last  but  a  moment  longer. 

At  that  instant  something  took  his 
gaze  away  from  the  83.  Just  to  the 
right  of  the  blue  jersey  and  slowly  fall- 
ing back  toward  them,  was  the  crimson- 


HIS   FIRST   RACE  85 

banded  runner  who  had  held  third  place. 
His  stride  had  so  lost  its  regularity  that 
he  had  swerved  toward  the  center  of  the 
track.  His  arms,  which  had  moved  stiff 
and  steadily  at  his  sides,  were  doubled 
up  as  a  child  runs,  with  fists  churning  in 
front  of  his  face.  His  head  and  upper 
body  pumped,  as  though  he  were  push- 
ing himself  along.  The  Freshman  was 
amazed.  That  one  of  those  others  should 
thus  show  signs  of  weakness,  while  he 
himself  kept  his  feet,  seemed  incongru- 
ous. Then  the  exhausted  runner  wab- 
bled ;  once  his  foot  struck  out  sideways, 
and  he  was  thrown  out  of  his  stride.  At 
that  moment  number  83  passed  by.  Close 
upon  him,  mystified  but  dogged,  the 
Freshman  found  himself  slowly  but 
steadily  slipping  past  the  beaten  racer. 
As  he  did  so  the  face  of  things  changed. 
When  he  snapped  his  eyes  back  to  the 
83,  there  was  a  new  look  in  them. 
Before,  it  had  been  the  stubborn  terror 
of  a  child ;  there  was  now  a  suggestion 
of  the  eyes  of  a  fox-terrier  who  stands 
before  a  rat-hole  with  tail  bobbing  nerv- 


86  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

ously    and   legs    trembling   with    excite- 
ment. 

It  was  a  big  thing  which  the  Fresh- 
man had  learned  in  the  last  second,  but 
it  did  not  make  new  legs,  or  lungs  full  of 
air.  They  were  just  passing  the  three- 
eighths  mark,  and  he  must  finish  as  he 
was.  The  same  relentless  chuck — swish 
— chuck — swish — beat  upon  the  cinders. 
The  Freshman's  legs  seemed  to  have  lost 
all  feeling  and  to  rise  and  fall  mechanic- 
ally, like  wooden  sticks.  Suddenly  one 
of  them  slipped,  just  as  when  someone 
hits  you  unexpectedly  behind  the  knee. 
This  meant  that  he  was  falling  out  of  his 
stride,  and  it  frightened  him.  The  breath 
fell  so  shallowly  into  his  lungs  that  he 
seemed  to  be  seizing  it  in  bites.  Once 
he  discovered  a  fist  in  front  of  his  face, 
and  he  knew  then  that  he.  too,  was 
"  pumping."  Things  were  getting  wavy 
and  hazy  before  his  eyes.  He  was  learn- 
ing the  meaning  of  the  phrase,  "  running 
yourself  out."  It  means  to  run  till  you 
are  ready  to  drop,  then  shut  your  eyes, 
squeeze  your  fists,  and  sprint! 


HIS    FIRST   RACE  87 

The  Freshman  did  not  reaHze,  in  the 
excitement  of  it  all,  that  he  was  uncon- 
sciously increasing  his  speed  at  every 
step.  But  he  saw  the  83  come  nearer — 
slowly,  maddeningly  slow — but  steadily 
nearer.  As  each  dead  leg  heaved  for- 
ward, and  the  breath  slipped  from  the 
grasp  of  his  teeth,  he  approached  inch  by 
inch  until  he  could  have  touched  it  with 
his  hand.  Then  a  rash  courage  came  to 
him.  His  eyes  left  the  83 ;  he  swerved 
quickly  to  the  right,  his  left  arm  grazed 
the  other's  right,  and  he  was  past. 

They  were  entering  the  stretch.  Strid- 
ing ahead,  with  first  place  easily  his,  was 
the  veteran.  The  second  blue  jersey  was 
not  more  than  a  rod  ahead.  The  Fresh- 
man fastened  his  eyes  upon  the  advanc- 
ing back,  and,  foot  by  foot,  came  up  to 
it,  as  you  would  pull  yourself,  hand-over- 
hand, up  a  rope.  He  shut  his  eyes  for  an 
instant,  and  again  swerved  to  the  right. 
Then  he  heard  something  from  the  wait- 
ing stands  down  the  track.  For  several 
seconds  there  had  been  confused  cheer- 
ing, but  he  had  not  understood  it.     This 


88  A   BREAK   IN  TRAINING 

was  something  he  had  never  heard  before. 
It  was  his  own  name  shouted  out  by  the 
black  waving  mass  that  stretched  all  along 
the  straightaway  to  the  tape.  All  in  a 
flash  it  came  to  him  that  the  great  crowd, 
instead  of  being  a  cruel,  silent,  staring 
enemy,  was  with  him.  And  the  track, 
instead  of  being  a  sort  of  operating  table, 
was  a  place  on  which  to  run  and  some- 
times to  win.  And  the  other  runners,  the 
spectators,  every  detail  of  it  all,  were  only 
parts  of  a  big  game  which,  after  all,  ought 
to  be  fun. 

Fifty  yards  away  in  front  he  could  see, 
stretched  breast-high  across  the  track,  the 
narrow  line  of  crimson  tape.  With  the 
shouts  at  his  side  sounding  gloriously  in 
his  ears,  he  took  his  eyes  from  his  rival, 
and  held  them  to  that  narrow  streak  of 
red.  In  his  mind  he  took  in  the  number 
of  strides  and  the  strength  it  would  take 
to  reach  it,  just  as  you  understand  a 
whole  sentence  of  print  at  a  glance.  He 
felt  that  he  could  do  it,  though  it  had 
come  to  be  amazingly  hard.  For  the 
track  had  taken  on  an  odd  habit  of  rolling. 


HIS   FIRST   RACE  89 

rather  like  the  deck  of  a  ship;  once  it 
came  up  to  meet  him  so  that  his  foot 
struck  before  he  meant  it  to.  From  the 
finish  mark  he  could  hear  the  trainers 
sternly  calling,  "Keep  your  feet!  Keep 
— your — feet !  " 

Then  at  last  he  saw  the  back  in  front 
of  him  waver  a  bit  in  its  course,  and  the 
arms  and  upper  body  begin  to  pump.  The 
Freshman  fixed  his  eyes  again  on  the 
wavering  number,  and  again  drew  him- 
self nearer  and  nearer.  He  was  almost 
neck-and-neck  now — just  a  shade  behind, 
then  a  shadow  ahead.  The  two  strug- 
gling figures  seemed  inevitably  to  run  to- 
gether. The  track  behaved  strangely,  and 
the  Freshman  could  not  keep  clear  of  the 
man  at  his  side.  The  tape  was  not  more 
than  ten  feet  away,  when  their  elbows  hit 
hard  against  each  other.  For  a  moment 
the  Freshman  thought  he  was  falling; 
then,  half  running,  half  diving,  he  lunged 
toward  the  tape — and  fell  on  the  other 
side. 

Scrambling  to  his  feet,  with  arms  and 
neck  hanging  very  limp  and  breath  com- 


90  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

ing  quick,  he  looked  round  him  in  a  dazed 
way,  as  though  he  wondered  what  had 
happened.  Then,  because  his  knees  sud- 
denly felt  very  queer  and  weak,  he  started 
slowly  to  sit  down,  when  many  arms 
grabbed  him  and  he  felt  himself  raised. 
There  was  pushing  and  noise  and  much 
dust.  As  for  the  Freshman,  he  blinked 
down  from  somebody's  shoulder  in 
pleased  embarrassment  upon  the  crowd, 
and  then,  because  he  had  done  a  big  thing 
and  felt  very  empty  and  weak  and  queer, 
he  let  his  head  droop  and  beneath  his  half- 
closed  eyes  grinned  inside  at  the  crimson 
"  H  "  on  his  chest. 


THE    QUITTER 


THE    QUITTER 

YOUNG  Mr.  Jones  sat  on  the  bleachers 
in  a  perfectly  lovely  new  suit  of  flan- 
nels and  wearing  a  new  straw  hat,  with 
a  very  aesthetic  hat-band,  which  shone 
airily  in  the  afternoon  sunshine.  He  as 
looking  very  fit,  he  was  quite  free  from 
every  care,  all  the  other  admirers  of  Miss 
Bannerly  were  gnashing  their  teeth  in 
envy,  and  Jones  was  convinced  that  the 
world  was  a  very  comfortable  place  in- 
deed. 

For  one  thing,  he  was  going  to  see  a 
race  in  peace.  He  had  slept  like  a  babe 
all  the  night  before  and  he  hadn't  spent 
the  morning  rubbing  his  damp  hands  to- 
gether, and  wishing  for  some  hygienic 
anaesthetic  which  would  put  one  to  sleep 
the  day  before  the  games  and  let  one 
wake  up  fresh,  and  rather  pleasantly  sur- 
prised, just  as  one's  race  was  called. 
These  were  invitation  games,  so  that 
93 


94  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

nothing  particular  hung  on  any  particular 
race — unless,  perhaps  that  mile  run  in 
which  several  New  Haven  men  had  en- 
tered— and  Jones  could  sit  at  his  ease, 
with  a  free  conscience  and  that  interest 
which  only  an  outsider  can  have,  and 
watch  a  lot  of  young  men  whom  he  knew 
very  well,  and  whose  particular  abilities 
and  failings  he  knew  all  about,  running 
themselves  out  for  his  amusement.  It 
was  a  very  beautiful  day,  so  beautiful — 
with  the  fresh  green  in  the  grass  and  the 
willows,  and  the  warm  May  sun  smiling 
down  from  the  blue,  and  the  nice-lookinsf 
people  in  nice-looking  clothes  sitting  all 
about  and  chatting  quietly — that  he 
didn't  even  bother  to  talk  very  much,  but 
just  sat  back  and  smiled  now  and  then 
and  let  himself  bask  in  things.  And  as 
he  watched  the  shot-putters  poised  for 
the  throw,  with  their  right  arms  drawn 
back  into  a  tensely  coiled  living  spring 
and  their  outstretched  left  arms  outlined 
against  the  trees,  and  the  sprinters  prac- 
ticing starts  at  the  top  of  the  track  below 
the  Willows,  and  the  white  figures  and 


THE   QUITTER  95 

the  crimson  and  blue  sweaters  dotting  the 
green  near  the  starting  Hne  about  the 
field-house  steps,  he  was  pleasantly  con- 
scious of  the  fragrant  beauty  of  it  all  and 
what  a  great  thing  it  w-as  to  be  young  and 
fit  and  about  to  run — which  you  don't  at 
all  feel  when  you're  actually  about  to 
race,  and  you're  doubling  the  knots  in 
your  spiked  shoes,  and  licking  your  lips 
with  your  cottony  tongue  and  listening  to 
your  heart  thump  and  wondering  why 
that  Eli — who  feels  just  as  you  do  and  is 
worried  to  death  at  your  maddening 
coolness — should  look  as  though  lie  were 
made  of  rawhide  and  steel  springs  and 
was  ready  to  bite  the  heads  off  ten-penny 
wire  nails. 

"  Whee-ee-eel !  " 

Good  gracious !  What  was  that  shiver 
up  his  backbone  and  that  quick  throb  un- 
der his  handkerchief  pocket?  And  why 
did  he  feci  as  though  someone  had  sud- 
denly called  on  him  for  a  speech  ?  It  was 
only  the  hurdlers  crouching  for  the  start 
of  the  first  heat  away  dowai  there  at  the 
other  end  of  the  straightaway. 


96  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

"  You  must  know  just  how  they  feel !  " 
murmured  Miss  Bannerly. 

"  I  guess  I  do!  "  said  Jones,  taking  off 
his  hat  and  fanning  himself.  There  was 
a  far-away  snap,  a  little  puff  of  smoke 
floated  off  over  the  grass,  and  the  four 
runners  were  already  taking  the  first  hur- 
dle. And  how  prettily!  Thud — thud — 
thud — clip !  Thud— thud — thud— clip ! 
With  each  stride  perfectly  calculated,  the 
swift  rush,  rise,  clip  and  recover  smoothed 
into  one  motion  as  the  notes  of  a  violin 
are  drawn  out  in  one  sweep  of  the  bow ; 
how  the  four  white  figures  fairly  ate  up 
the  ground  and  sailed  toward  the  finish 
line! 

"  Pretty !  "  whispered  the  girl. 

"  Yes,"  murmured  Jones. 

He  had  never  had  an  idea  that  track 
games  could  be  so  much  fun.  He  had 
always  been  like  the  man  who  beats  the 
cymbals  in  the  band,  and  now  for  the  first 
time  he  was  out  and  away  from  it  all  and 
he  could  catch  the  tone  of  the  swift, 
sweet  music. 

How  easy  and  simple  it  seemed,  sit- 


THE    QUITTER  97 

ting  there  in  the  stands!  That  quarter- 
mile  dash — merely  a  swift  and  pretty  bit 
of  running!  And  yet  he  could  feel  even 
now  the  start  of  the  only  four-forty  he 
had  ever  raced,  the  sudden  collapse  at 
the  lower  turn,  the  struggle  through 
quicksand  to  the  tape  and  now — a  swift, 
pretty  bit  of  running,  and  that  was  all ! 
How  easy  to  see  that  the  second  man 
was  really  all  in  at  the  three  hundred 
mark,  and  that  if  young  Gray  had 
sprinted  then  instead  of  waiting,  he 
could  have  finished  second,  possibly  even 
won.  How  ridiculously  plain  that  the 
Freshman  who  dropped  out  at  the  lower 
turn,  was  running  himself  out  in  the  first 
two-twenty ! 

This  new  point  of  view  filled  Jones 
with  excitement  and  delight  and  he  began 
talking  to  Miss  Bannerly  with  such  vi- 
vacity and  charm,  that  she  was  presently 
compelled  to  murmur : 

"  I'm  awfully  glad  that  you  didn't  have 
to  run." 

That  was,  of  course,  one  way  of  put- 
ting it,  and  he  was  just  telling  her  that 


98  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

altliough  he'd  rather  run  than  eat,  there 
were  some  things  even  more  important 
than  running  when 

"  Whee-ee-eel !  "  And  over  the  grass 
came  the  far-away  cry  of,  "  All  out  for 
the  mile !  " 

As  the  sound  struck  his  ear  he  started 
instinctively,  and  he  forgot  on  the  in- 
stant all  about  the  beautiful  day  and  the 
girl  and  how  fit  he  felt,  and  he  was  back 
with  the  rest  of  them  in  the  contestants' 
room,  just  jumping  up  out  of  his  blan- 
ket, with  his  heart  knocking  against  his 
ribs.  He  took  out  his  stop-watch  and 
carefully  set  it.  Was  it  because  this  was 
his  own  event  and  he  knew  all  about  it 
that  the  men  seemed  to  look  more  wor- 
ried as  they  took  their  places  at  the  start- 
ing line?  Young  Merriman  was  posi- 
tively ghostly.  Jones  kept  his  eye  on 
him. 

"  Do  you  see  that  one  on  the  outside?  " 
he  whispered,  "  I've  beaten  that  man 
time  and  again !  " 

"Why — then  why  aren't  you  running?" 
inquired   Miss  Bannerly.     They  do  ask 


THE   QUITTER  99 

such  difficult  questions.  The  truth  was 
that  in  the  trial  to  pick  the  four,  this  man 
Alerriman,  who  nobody  had  reckoned 
with,  and  whom  Jones  had,  indeed,  beaten 
every  time  he  had  been  in  the  same  race 
with  him  before,  had  hit  up  the  most  un- 
expected and  spectacular  sprint  the  mo- 
ment they  rounded  the  first  turn  of  the 
last  lap.  It  isn't  at  all  easy,  after  you 
have  run  three  laps,  to  come  up  into  your 
sprint  that  far  from  home,  and  when 
Jones  did  finally  let  himself  out — if  such 
an  ironical  phrase  may  be  used  to  describe 
the  groggy  battle  of  the  last  fifty  yards — 
young  Merriman  beat  him  out  for  fourth 
place  by  a  wabbly  neck.  And  when 
e\'erybody  wanted  to  know  what  he  had 
been  afraid  of  and  why  he  hadn't  sprinted 
before,  he  swore  to  himself  that  he  had 
had  enough  of  it,  and  that  for  once  he 
would  survey  the  games  like  a  gentleman 
in  his  proper  raiment  and  his  right  mind. 
It  is  much  easier  to  put  this  down  here 
than  it  was  for  Jones  to  explain  it,  and 
he  had  hardly  begun  when  the  starter's 
pistol  snapped  and  they  were  off.     He 


lOO  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

leaned  forward  and  pressed  the  spring  of 
his  stop-watch.  In  his  mind  he  was  jost- 
ling with  the  others  for  the  pole.  It 
was  a  terrific  moment.  The  girl  laughed 
lightly. 

"  Look  at  them  bump  each  other!  "  she 
cried. 

Jones  glowered  at  her  absent-mindedly, 
and  back  at  the  track.  A  man  he  knew, 
coming  up  to  get  a  better  view,  sat  down 
in  the  aisle  beside  him. 

"Too  bad  about  Foote,  wasn't  it?" 
he  said.  "  Slipped  on  the  stairs  in  the 
locker  building  and  sprained  his  ankle!  " 
Jones  suddenly  saw  that  there  were  only 
seven  men  running.  That  meant — it 
meant,  among  other  things,  that  with  the 
only  really  first-class  man  of  the  four  out 
of  it,  young  Merriman  stood  a  chance  of 
a  place — stood  a  good  chance — hang  it 
all — of  winning ! 

The  line  trailed  out.  Could  that  be 
a  mile  gait  they  were  running?  How 
slow  and  dog-trot  it  looked  from  the 
stands !  Merriman  was  third.  As  the 
pack  trailed  on  round  the  first  lap,  he 


THE    QUITTER  loi 

pressed  his  pacemaker  and  at  the  upper 
turn,  starting  the  second  lap,  swung  out, 
sprinted  a  few  steps  and  cut  in  just  be- 
hind the  leader.  There  was  some  cheer- 
ing and  polite  applause.  Jones  knew  him 
well  enough,  however,  to  see,  by  the  look 
of  his  face  as  he  strode  past,  that  he  was 
pretty  well  up  in  the  air.  Two  things 
were  likely  to  happen.  He  might  go  to 
pieces  or  his  overwrought  nerves  might 
carry  him  through  to  run  as  he  had  never 
run  before.  Jones  settled  back  with  a 
pleasantly  barbaric  satisfaction  at  what 
he  was  about  to  see. 

Round  the  second  lap  they  strode,  in 
Indian  file,  on  to  the  five-eighths,  and  up 
past  the  Willows  toward  the  finish  of  the 
third. 

All  at  once  there  were  little  breaks  in 
the  file.  It  was  that  vague  premonitory 
stir  which  shows  that  the  point  is  being 
reached  where  the  race  ceases  to  be  a 
dogged  grind  and  suddenly  shifts  into  the 
sprint  for  home.  To  know  when  this 
point  has  been  reached  is  extremely  im- 
portant.    If  one  starts  to  jump  a  picket 


102  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

fence  and  yields  for  the  least  fraction  of 
a  second  to  that  qualmish  feeling  that 
comes  just  at  the  take-off,  one  is  likely  to 
balk  altogether,  or  land  ignominiously 
tripping.  Blow  it  aside,  leap  hard  and 
trust  to  luck  and  a  sort  of  outside  force 
comes,  sometimes  after  one  is  in  the  air, 
and  lifts  one  over  handily.  There  is  the 
same  psychological  instant  in  a  race.  The 
men  who  "  never  know  when  they  are 
beaten,"  take  it  without  knowing  it.  The 
veteran  runner  feels  it  by  instinct,  or  ar- 
ranges it.  From  the  outside  one  can 
easily  see  the  spot  where  the  change  be- 
gins; to  perceive  it  on  the  inside,  with 
senses  jaded  and  goaded  by  the  running, 
is  very  hard  indeed. 

Very  suddenly,  just  as  they  crossed  the 
three-quarter  mile  stone,  the  man  who 
had  led  all  the  way,  broke  into  a  half 
sprint.  Before  young  Merriman  could 
hit  up  his  pace  he  was  ten  yards  behind. 
■Jones  saw  his  startled,  haggard  face,  saw 
his  fists  go  up  as  he  responded  to  the 
challenge  and  his  head  snap  back — a  bit 
too  far  with  a  quarter-mile  yet  to  go — 


THE   QUITTER  103 

and  he  knew  that,  one  way  or  the  other, 
within  the  next  two-twenty  the  race 
would  be  all  over  but  the  shouting. 

In  an  instant  the  wavering  file  was  dis- 
arranged and  broken.  Down  the  back- 
stretch  they  all  went  in  a  mad  run,  the 
three  in  front  keeping  their  relative 
places,  the  others  jostling  back  and  forth. 
All  at  once  everybody  began  to  yell.  The 
leader  was  weakening.  He  had  set  the 
pace  from  the  breakaway,  and  young 
Merriman's  hysterical  speed  in  the  third 
quarter  had  not  let  him  lower  it  as  he 
ought  to  have  done.  Jones's  practiced 
eyes  caught  all  the  subtle  signals  of  dis- 
tress, and  the  sight  nearly  drove  him  off 
his  seat.  All  the  steam  stored  up  in  his 
two  days'  rest  and  lack  of  worry  seemed 
shouting  for  release. 

"  He's  got  him !  He's  got  him !  "  he 
cried.  He  wasn't  thinking  of  the  fact 
that  at  the  seven-eighths  mark  a  man  is 
about  as  well  fixed  for  intelligent  calcu- 
lation as  an  exhausted  swimmer  going 
down  for  the  second  time,  but  of  what  he 
could  do  to  that  man  in  front  if  he  could 


104  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

only  jump  out  on  the  track  now.  And 
at  that  moment  the  man  in  third  place 
who  had  been  paced  by  Merriman  all  this 
time,  swung  out,  jostled  Merriman's  el- 
bow as  he  passed,  and  with  a  burst  of 
speed  which  he  had  picked  out  of  the  air, 
so  to  speak,  began  to  walk  away  from 
him. 

It  was  a  heart-breaking  challenge,  com- 
ing just  then.  The  boy  responded.  He 
held  his  own  for  a  dozen  strides,  looked 
almost  to  be  gaining,  then,  all  at  once, 
stopped.  He  didn't  fall,  he  wasn't  quite 
"  out."  He  just  stopped.  And  with  his 
head  down  and  his  arms  hanging  limp 
and  stepping  unsteadily  he  started  back 
across  the  grass  toward  the  field-house. 
Something  was  said  afterward  about  his 
losing  a  shoe,  but  the  fact  remained  for 
all  that  that  he  had  quit,  with  two  men 
ahead  in  distress  and  two  hundred  yards 
yet  to  go. 

"  Look  at  him !  "  cried  Jones.  "  Why, 
the  man's  stopped !  "  He  could  not  be- 
lieve his  eyes.  His  blood  was  up,  he  had 
been  running  the  race  in  his  rival's  shoes, 


THE   QUITTER  105 

and  in  each  of  Alerriman's  strides  had  feh 
himself  overhauhng  the  men  ahead. 

"  If  I  could  only  get  out  there!  "  He 
was  pounding  his  knees  in  despair.  "  I 
could  beat  'em — just  look  how  easy  it 
would  be !  And  he's  going  to  win — that 
Eli — do  you  see  ?  He's  all  out  and  Merri- 
man's  going  to  let " 

"  Maybe  he's  hurt,"  suggested  the  girl, 
watching  the  beaten  boy  limp  across  the 
field. 

"Hurt!  Hurt!"  Jones  mopped  his 
forehead  with  his  handkerchief.  "  Why, 
he  had  the  race!  Another  thirty  yards 
and  he'd  have  won!  Oh!  "  he  groaned, 
"Quitter!" 

The  girl  looked  at  him  inquiringly,  and 
something  of  his  chagrin  and  desperation 
communicated  itself  to  her. 

"If  only  yon  could  have  run!"  she 
cried. 

"  Yes!  If  only  I  had  run!  If  I  had 
I  would  have  been  in  the  race!  But  I 
can't  run — don't  you  see,  it's  too  late." 

"  Quitter!  "  repeated  the  girl  in  a  whis- 
per.     She   was   looking  across   the  field 


I06  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

at  young  Alerriman,  now  stretched  on  the 
grass  near  the  field-house,  with  his  face 
buried  in  his  sweater,  and  the  word  was 
only  a  sort  of  echo  of  her  sympathy,  but 
it  came  out  at  a  strange  instant  and  Jones 
looked   around  quickly   and   flushed. 

"  Oh,  if  you  only  could  have  run !  "  she 
said.  There  was  a  lot  of  yelling,  which  told 
that  the  race  was  being  finished  out,  but 
Jones  did  not  even  look  that  way.  He 
was  thinking  very  fast, 

"  I  think  I  shall  run!  "  he  said,  quiet- 
ly. And  at  this  he  arose.  Of  course,  Miss 
Bannerly  didn't  know  at  all  what  it 
meant,  so  she  merely  smiled  at  him 
kindly. 

"  There  are  still  three  races  left  " — he 
turned  suddenly  to  Miss  Bannerly — 
"  You  see  I've  just  got  an  idea.  And  it 
won't  keep.  And  so  I'm  going  over  to 
the  field-house — if  you  don't  mind — 
Please  don't  mind — and  take  off  these 
clothes  and  run  one  of  those  open  handi- 
caps with  a  lot  of  strange  gentlemen  and 
give  them  the  race  of  their  lives  and — 
and  maybe  bring  you  back  one  of  those 


THE   QUITTER  107 

big,  shiny  mugs  you  can  see  on  the  table 
over  there  on  the  field.  Please  don't 
mind,"  concluded  young  Jones,  helplessly. 
"  It's  my  last  chance,  and  I've  really  got 
to  and  it'll  only  take  a  minute." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Miss  Bannerly,  who 
didn't  understand  at  all,  but  was  a  very 
nice  young  person  indeed.  "  And  don't 
forget  the  cup !" 

Young  Jones  burst  into  the  locker- 
room  with  somewhat  the  same  pictorial 
effect  that  might  be  produced  by  drop- 
ping a  basket  of  roses  into  a  boiler-room 
full  of  stokers.  He  pulled  off  his  flannels, 
tossed  the  straw  hat  on  top  of  a  dusty 
locker  and  jumped  into  his  running  clothes. 
Everybody  had  been  entered  for  every- 
thing as  was  the  enthusiastic  custom  in 
invitation  games  and  of  the  three  events 
that  remained  Jones  chose  the  handicap- 
half  because  it  came  first.  He  had  never 
tried  the  half  before,  but,  as  he  explained 
to  his  friend  Apley,  he  had  a  new  idea 
and  he  wanted  to  try  it  before  it  got  away 
from  him.  Apley.  who  was  studying  his 
programme  to  find  out  Jones's  handicap. 


lo8  A    BREAK    IN    TRAINING 

said  that  he  would  be  lucky  if  nothing  but 
the  idea  got  away  from  him, 

"You  get  twenty  yards,"  said  Apley. 
"  but  the  scratch  men  aren't  going  in,  and 
the  New  York  A.  C.  man  on  the  ten  yards 
didn't  come  up,  so  you're  running  scratch, 
that's  what  you're  doing.  There's  a  gen- 
tleman named  Devanny  on  the  twenty- 
yard  mark,  too  " — it  seemed  to  amuse 
Apley  immensely — "  he  comes  from 
Worcester,  eats  cinders  and  runs  in  his 
sleep,  and  Mr.  Corrigan  from  Somer- 
ville,  who  ought  to  be  at  scratch,  but 
gets  twenty-five  and  —  why — if — here 
isn't " 

Jones  looked  where  Apley's  finger 
pointed  and  saw  a  "  Y."  It  was  nobody 
they  had  ever  heard  of,  but  in  that  race 
the  unknown  stood  for  his  whole  college, 
and  the  shock  was  so  great  that  he  could 
only  throw  his  arms  about  Apley's  neck 
and  declare  that  he  died  happy. 

And,  of  course,  Jones  won.  At  the 
quarter  he  had  cut  down  his  field.  When 
honest  Jerry  Devanny,  who  ran  races  as 
methodically    as    he    might    saw    wood. 


THE    QUITTER  log 

started  to  move  up  at  the  backstretch 
turn,  Jones,  thinking  only  of  how  slow 
the  pace  would  appear  if  he  were  looking 
on,  swung  out  into  the  middle  of  the 
track,  and  took  the  bit  in  his  teeth.  At 
the  three-eighths  he  had  fought  Devanny 
to  a  standstill,  and  he  felt  that  same  lift 
coming,  which,  when  you  have  once  got 
up  in  the  air,  seems  to  carry  you  over  the 
impossible  wall.  Rounding  the  lower 
turn  he  pulled  away  and  with  his  friends 
laughing  and  the  trainer  nearly  in  col- 
lapse, romped  down  to  the  tape,  in  what 
the  racing  reporters  might  describe  as 
"  under  double  wraps  and  going  away." 

"  Always  thought  he  had  it  in  him," 
rattled  Apley,  when  he  and  Jones  had 
gone  back  to  the  stands ;  "  but  the  trouble 
with  him's  been,  you  know,  he  was  such 
an  awful  quitter." 

"Sir!"  Miss  Bannerly  raised  mena- 
cingly a  limp  parasol,  which  had  chanced 
to  break  just  as  the  runners  swung  into 
the  stretch.  "  What  shall  we  do  to  him  ?  " 
she  demanded. 

Jones  tossed  Apley  a  benign  acknowl- 


no  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

edgment  of  the  "  We  "  and  "  I  don't  be- 
lieve I  would  do  anything,"  he  said.  "  Be- 
cause," and  meditatively  he  clamp- 
clamped  the  lid  of  the  pewter  mug  up  and 
down,  "  the  grand-stand  point  of  view 
is  very  illuminating.  Because  he's  really 
quite  right."  Young  Apley  looked  from 
one  to  the  other  and  smiled  with  great 
good  humor. 

"  Jones,"  he  began,  oracularly,  "  you're 
a  noble  fellow.  How  true  the  words  of 
the  graduates  that  in  these  our  sports  we 
but  prepare  for  those  sterner — I  mean," 
he  broke  off,  laughing,  "  maybe  you'll 
have  a  chance  to  use  that  new  idea  again." 


LEFT    BEHIND 


LEFT    BEHIND 

EVERYBODY  in  the  house— in  all  the 
world  it  seemed — was  sleeping,  but 
the  Vandalia  ]\Iiler  sat  up  in  bed,  staring 
with  dry.  wide-open  eyes  at  the  wall.  Tlie 
dormer  room,  tucked  up  under  the  roof, 
was  stuffy  and  close  and  smelled  of  heat 
and  wallpaper  and  rag  carpet.  Through 
the  little  window,  from  the  trees  and 
grass  outside,  came  the  steady  whirring 
of  the  tree-toads  and  crickets.  Suddenly 
the  stillness  was  broken  and  the  campus 
clock  tolled  two.  As  the  harsh  note 
grated  on  his  nerves  his  heart  gave  a 
thump  and  he  threw  himself  back  and 
buried  his  face  in  the  hot  pillow.  It 
seemed  as  though  he  must  shut  out  the 
world  and  forget.  But  he  couldn't  for- 
get, and  you  can  shut  out  the  world  with 
a  pillow — only  so  long  as  you  can  hold 
your  breath.  He  slipped  over  the  edge 
H3 


114  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

of  the  bed — that  ridiculous,  high,  hot 
feather-bed — and  with  his  chin  in  his 
hands  and  his  elbows  on  his  knees, 
blinked  at  the  little  windows  and  the 
patch  of  moonlight  on  the  floor  where 
the  Other  Man  lay  sleeping.  And  as  he 
watched  him,  snoring  there  comfortably 
in  his  sleep,  his  own  secret  returned  again 
and  bit  into  him,  as  it  had  returned  so 
many  times  that  day  and  night,  and  all 
the  disappointment  and  bitterness  and 
despair  of  it.  And  he  felt  that  life  had 
tricked  him,  cut  him  off  in  the  flower  of 
his  youth  and  put  him  on  the  outside, 
and  he  was  an  outcast  with  his  hand 
raised  against  the  world. 

When  they  had  arrived  that  night,  with 
a  lot  of  the  other  teams  that  had  come 
down  for  the  interscholastics,  and  had 
been  assigned  to  that  one  remaining  va- 
cant room,  the  Other  Man  had  told  him 
to  go  ahead  and  take  the  bed,  because,  as 
he  explained,  a  miler  needed  all  the  sleep 
he  could  get,  whereas  a  bit  of  wakeful- 
ness the  night  before  the  games  only 
served   to  put  an  edge  on  a   sprinter's 


LEFT   BEHIND  115 

nerves.  "  It'll  make  me  start  quicker," 
said  he.  spreading  a  blanket  on  the  floor. 
That  was  just  like  the  luck  of  the  Other 
Man — to  give  up  something  and  after  all 
to  get  it  back  again.  And  the  Vandalia 
Miler  blinked  at  him,  and  thought  and 
thought,  and  wondered  whether  the  Other 
Man  would  make  the  'varsity  in  his  fresh- 
man year.  For  the  Other  Alan  was  going 
away  to  college  and  the  Vandalia  Miler 
couldn't  go.  That  was  his  secret,  which 
had  been  his  for  only  a  day,  and  which 
he  was  somehow  too  proud  to  tell.  That 
was  why  he  believed  that  he  was  an  out- 
cast, a  pariah — why,  a  shivery  abyss 
yawned  between  these  two  old  friends, 
though  you  might  have  thought  that  it 
was  but  a  yard  or  two  of  rag  carpet  that 
separated  him,  sitting  there  on  the  edge 
of  the  bed,  from  the  Other  Man,  sleeping 
in  his  blanket  on  the  floor.  They  had 
grown  up  in  Vandalia,  in  that  little  prairie 
town,  from  the  beginning:  gone  swim- 
ming together  and  skated  and  rung  door- 
bells, gone  through  the  grammar-school 
and  into  the  high-school,  and  then,  when 


Ii6  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

most  of  the  town  boys  were  dropping 
out  to  go  to  work  and  the  ones  who  were 
going  to  college  went  away  to  "  prep." 
school,  they  had  decided  to  stick  by  the 
ship.  They  would  stick  by  their  town 
as  long  as  they  could,  but  when  they  had 
to  leave  they  were  going,  not  to  one  of 
the  State  universities,  not  to  Chicago,  but 
down  into  the  distant  and  glittering  East. 
One  didn't  go  down  East  to  college  from 
the  Vandalia  High-School.  They  were 
about  the  only  men  left  in  the  class  after 
their  sophomore  year ;  the  rest  were  girls 
— the  girls  they  had  grown  up  with  and 
written  notes  to  and  divided  their  apples 
and  candy  with,  back  in  the  kid  days. 
Once  there  had  been  a  cane-rush — some- 
body had  read  about  one  in  a  book — and 
two  legs  and  an  arm  were  broken  and 
one  boy  nearly  killed.  The  girls  were 
ordered  to  keep  out.  They  jumped  in, 
carried  water,  bandaged  black  eyes  with 
their  handkerchiefs,  freshman  girls  untied 
the  freshmen  as  fast  as  the  sophomores 
tied  them  up — that's  the  sort  of  girls  they 
were.     And  he  and  the  Other  Man  were 


LEFT    BEHIND  117 

the  only  men  in  the  class  and  going  down 
East  to  college  afterward.  Probably  you 
do  not  understand  just  what  that  meant. 
You  may  know,  perhaps,  some  little  high- 
church  school,  built  on  the  top  of  a  hill 
like  a  robber  baron's  castle,  where  there 
are  just  about  enough  boys  to  make  up 
the  teams  if  each  boy  plays  on  all  of 
them,  and  the  one  who  is  captain  of  the 
eleven  is  generally  captain  of  the  nine 
and  the  track  team  and  leads  the  banjo 
club. 

If  you  were  chosen  captain  of  the 
eleven  in  your  freshman  year,  you  would, 
of  course,  be  a  much  greater  man  than 
the  President.  But  you  wouldn't  have  a 
lot  of  good-fellow  girls  to  watch  you  and 
to  tell  you  so.  And  the  Vandalia  Miler 
had  both — he  and  the  Other  Man. 

They  pounded  out  the  only  decent 
eleven  the  school  had  ever  had  and  a  nine 
and  a  paper,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  and 
divided  everything — just  as  though  it  was 
a  Trust.  One  of  them  would  write  the 
editorials  calling  down  the  faculty  and 
the    other    would    preside    at    the    mass- 


Il8  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

meetings;  he  would  lead  the  mandolin 
club,  with  about  six  yards  of  satin  ribbon 
which  one  of  the  girls  had  given  him  tied 
to  his  mandolin  to  show  that  he  was 
leader,  and  the  Other  Man  would  lead  the 
glee  club  and  sing  all  the  tenor  solos. 
And  at  last,  in  their  senior  year,  they  got 
up  a  track  team.  It  was  the  last  chance 
they  had — after  June  the  deluge.  They 
sent  to  Chicago  for  real  running  clothes 
and  spiked  shoes — it  had  been  sneakers 
and  trousers  cut  off  at  the  knees  before 
that  in  Vandalia — and  taught  the  school 
a  brand  new  cheer.  The  merchants  put 
up  the  money  to  send  the  team  down  to 
Pardeeville,  and  the  night  before  they 
left  there  was  a  mass-meeting  and  a  dance 
and  speeches.  The  Vandalia  Miler, 
blinking  at  the  torn  mosquito-bar  that 
covered  the  little  window,  smiled  grimly 
as  he  thought  of  that  speech — of  that 
droll  school  orator  of  theirs,  older  than 
the  rest  of  them,  with  his  high  forehead 
and  Henry  Clay  scalplock,  and  his  arms 
outspread  and  his  voice  in  his  boots : 
"  With  every  heart  in  Vandalia  beating 


LEFT   BEHIND  119 

for  you,  every  eye  turned  down  the  prairie 
toward  the  South,  you  go — to  run  for 
VandaHa,  to  w^in  for  Vandalia,  and  if  not 
to  win,  to  fight  to  the  last  ditch  for  the 
purple  '  V  '  upon  your  breasts !  "  And  he 
and  the  Other  Man  had  gone  home  to- 
gether on  air,  and  told  each  other  how 
they  were  going  to  make  the  team  when 
they  got  down  to  college  and  show  those 
effete  Easterners  what  it  meant  to  meet  a 
real  man  and — and  there  was  a  light  in 
the  library  window  when  he  got  home, 
past  midnight  though  it  was,  and  his 
father  was  in  there  locked  up  with  his 
lawyer.  Something  had  happened.  It 
wouldn't  be  announced  for  a  day  or  two 
yet,  but  everything  had  gone  to  smash, 
and  it  meant  that  the  Vandalia  Miler  must 
stay  behind  and  go  to  work  in  the  hard- 
ware store.  That's  where  they  had  ar- 
rived at  last,  though  his  father  would 
have  had  him  go  on  just  as  he  had 
planned.  He  didn't  sleep  much  that 
night,  and  he  had  gone  down  to  the  train 
the  next  day  as  late  as  he  could  and 
slipped  on  when  nobody  would  see  him. 


120  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

while  the  girls  were  singing  and  waving 
flags  from  the  station  platform  and  the 
rest  of  the  men  were  leaning  out  of  the 
windows  and  laughing  and  waving  their 
hats.  And  here  he  was — where  he  had 
longed  to  be — sent  down  on  the  team  to 
run  for  his  school  and  his  town,  and  it  all 
seemed  like  something  in  a  pantomime, 
outside  of  him  and  far  away,  unreal  and 
part  of  a  horrid  dream.  But  he  ]iad  to 
run.  It  came  back,  just  as  it  did  every 
minute  or  two,  like  a  quick  pain.  He 
went  hot  all  over.  Those  others,  who 
were  going  to  fight  it  out  with  him,  w^ere 
all  sleeping  now,  just  like  the  Other  Man. 
He  must  hang  on  to  himself — get  some 
sleep.  He  gritted  his  teeth,  squeezed  his 
fists,  and  told  himself  that  after  all  they 
were  kids  and  he  was  now  a  real  man. 
There  are  a  number  of  things — he  would 
begin  very  sternly — more  important  than 
going  to  college,  and  a  'varsity  initial 
won't  help  you  much  before  a  judge  and 
jury  or  patch  up  anybody's  broken  bones 
or  tell  how  the  market's  going,  but — and 
here  he  slipped  and  raced  away  again — 


LEFT   BEHIND  121 

but  no  more  will  a  Victoria  Cross  nor  a 
rag  from  the  captured  colors.  And  just 
as  long — just  as  long  as  there  are  men  in 
the  world  with  hearts  under  their  coats 
and  blood  in  their  veins  there'll  be  some- 
body to  work  the  last  gun  and  to  head 
the  forlorn  hope  and  fling  a  life  away  for 
a  smile  or  a  cheer  or  a  bit  of  ribbon.  And 
it  doesn't  make  any  difference  whether 
he's  got  on  a  cuirassier's  breast-plate  or 
football  canvas,  a  running  suit  or  khaki. 
And  when  the  others  are  ready  to  go 
and  the  band  begins  to  play,  it  isn't  any 

fun  to  be  left  behind  and He  got 

sorrier  and  sorrier  for  himself,  which  is 
a  very,  very  bad  thing  for  a  very  young 
man  to  do,  until  at  last  he  flung  himself 
back  on  the  bed,  and  with  his  head  full 
of  charging  cavalry,  photographs  of 
'varsity  teams,  batteries  galloping  into  ac- 
tion, and  lonely  outcasts  left  behind,  he 
finally  dropped  asleep,  just  as  the  night 
was  graying  and  the  birds  were  begin- 
ning to  chirp  in  the  trees  outside.  For 
just  a  minute  he  forgot,  and  then  some- 
body shook  him  and  he  saw  the  Other 


122  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Man  was  standing  over  him,  fresh  as 
paint. 

"  Gee,  man !  "  he  laughed ;  "  you  look 
dead  as  a  smelt !  Don't  mean  to  say  you 
stayed  awake  with  all  that  bed  to  range 
about  in !  " 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  the  VandaHa  Miler;  "  I 
slept  all  right." 

He  ran  very  well  in  spite  of  everything. 
Had  he  had  a  bit  more  experience  in  rac- 
ing, he  would  have  tried  sooner  to  get 
within  striking  distance  of  the  leaders. 
As  it  was,  coming  round  the  upper  turn 
into  the  stretch,  he  sprinted  past  the  fifth 
and  fourth  men  and  lost  his  feet  and  fell, 
completely  run  out,  just  as  he  was  being 
beaten  for  third  place  about  seven  feet 
short  of  the  tape.  It  was  one  of  those 
races  of  which  the  spectator  may  always 
remark  that  if  the  man  had  had  a  bit  more 
sand  he  would  have  won.  The  Other 
Man  had  already  won  his  brilliant  victory 
in  the  hundred  when  the  Vandalia  Miler 
was  beaten.  A  lot  of  people  were  con- 
gratulating him  and  the  trainer  of  one  of 
the  State  universities  had  just  promised 


LEFT   BEHIND  123 

him  board  and  tuition  if  he  would  enter 
there  that  fall  as  the  Miler  staggered  over 
the  line.  The  Other  Man  said  things 
to  the  trainer  and  told  him  that  he  guessed 
he'd  mistaken  his  man. 

"  Where  we're  going,"  and  he  smiled 
at  the  Vandalia  Miler  as  he  helped  him 
to  the  dressing-room,  "  they  don't  have 
professionals  on  the  team !  "  The  Van- 
dalia Miler  didn't  say  anything — you 
can't  say  much  just  after  you've  run  your- 
self out  in  a  mile  race — but  just  as  soon 
as  he  could,  he  pulled  on  his  clothes.  He 
was  special  correspondent  for  the  Van- 
dalia Blade.  They  had  made  him  feel 
very  proud  and  important  a  couple  of 
days  before  when  they  had  asked  him  to 
"  rush  in  a  thousand  words  after  the 
games,  just  as  soon  as  he  could  jump  on  a 
wire."  So  he  dragged  himself  over  to 
the  railroad  station  and  jumped  on  the 
wire.  It  was  not  what  you  would  call 
a  creative  mood.  But  he  sent  the  story. 
By  biting  his  lip  and  stopping  every  little 
while  he  told  all  about  it,  while  little  black 
spots  chased  each  other  up  the  paper,  and 


124  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

the  rest  who  had  been  beaten  were  com- 
ing to,  and  the  Other  Man  was  making* 
friends  with  the  "  prep."  school  stars  and 
promising  to  look  them  up  when  he  got 
down  East. 

When  the  story  was  off  the  wire  he 
went  back  to  the  boarding-house  and  lay 
down  on  the  tall  feather-bed.  He  was 
still  there  when  the  Other  Man  came  up 
to  dress  for  the  dance  that  was  to  be 
given  for  the  visiting  teams  that  night  in 
the  college  gym.  The  Other  Man  began 
early  because,  with  only  a  little  wavy 
mirror  and  a  smelly  kerosene  lamp,  a  wet 
hair-brush  and  a  straight  stand-up  collar 
about  as  high  as  a  cuff,  it  takes  one  quite 
a  while  to  make  one's  self  look  like  a 
Gibson  man.  The  Other  Man  spatted 
down  his  hair  in  the  light  of  the  little 
lamp  and  whistled  between  his  teeth ;  the 
Vandalia  Miler  lay  on  the  feather-bed 
staring  at  the  whitewashed  ceiling  and 
thinking.  He  couldn't  ask  the  belle  of 
the  ball  down  to  the  football  game  next 
autumn ;  he  couldn't  promise  to  send  back 
a  college  pin  for  a  red  satin  pillow  with 


LEFT   BEHIND  125 

a  white  initial  on  it  and  bet  boxes  of 
Huyler's  on  sure  things  with  all  the  girls 
who  wanted  to  lose  and  make  tobacco- 
pouches  for  him.  He  couldn't  put  on  any 
dog  at  all.  It  was  back  to  the  tall  grass 
for  him. 

"  Better  hurry  up  and  get  ready,"  said 
the  Other  Man,  puffing  over  his  tie. 

"  Don't  think  I'll  go,"  said  the  Vandalia 
Miler.  He  mumbled  something  about 
having  a  headache  and  feeling  pretty 
dopy.  "  What's  the  sport,  anyway,"  he 
added,  "  meeting  a  lot  of  girls  you're 
never  going  to  see  again  ?  "  He  was,  you 
see,  in  a  pretty  bad  way.  The  Other  Man 
turned  round  and  stared.  Then  he 
laughed.  Such  remarks  were  not  worthy 
a  reply. 

"  See  you  there !  "  he  chirped  pres- 
ently. Then,  with  his  trousers  turned  up 
an  extra  reef  and  his  straw  hat  stuck  on 
one  side — all  very  rakish  and  kinky — he 
blew  out  and  down  the  stairs,  three  steps 
at  a  time.  The  Vandalia  Miler  thought 
some  more.  After  a  while  he  got  up, 
stretched,  and  rubbed  his  eyes.     Then  he 


126  A   BREAK   IN  TRAINING 

jammed  his  running  clothes  into  his  suit- 
case— they  weren't  going  to  be  much  use 
to  him  any  more — and  started  for  the 
station.  Everybody  in  Pardeeville  was 
going  to  the  dance.  On  the  front  porches 
in  the  Hght  of  the  hall  lamps  he  could 
see  the  girls  slipping  their  light  scarfs 
over  their  shoulders,  and  now  and  then 
far  down  a  cross-street  catch  the  glimmer 
of  white  through  the  trees.  The  sidewalk 
was  narrow,  with  a  picket-fence  on  one 
side  and  big  elms  on  the  other,  and  every 
little  while  he  and  his  suit-case  would 
have  to  flatten  up  against  the  fence  while 
a  couple  passed  him,  with  low  words, 
perhaps,  that  he  couldn't  hear,  and  a  rip- 
ple of  laughter,  white  dresses — whiter  in 
the  dark — and  a  breath  of  perfume  in  the 
air  after  they  had  gone.  The  station  was 
deserted  and  silent  as  the  tomb.  The 
only  sign  of  life  was  the  lamp  shining 
through  the  window  and  the  sleepy  tele- 
graph operator  nodding  over  his  key. 
The  Vandalia  Miler  chucked  his  suit-case 
against  the  wall  and  began  tramping  up 
and  down,  counting  the  number  of  steps 


LEFT   BEHIND  127 

from  one  end  of  the  platform  to  the 
other.  After  a  long  while,  he  went  over 
to  the  little  grocery  across  the  street, 
bought  a  box  of  "  sweet  caps "  and 
smoked  them  relentlessly,  one  after  an- 
other, inhaling  the  last  two  or  three,  to 
convince  himself  that  he  was  hardened 
to  all  things  and  didn't  care.  Really, 
though,  things  were  getting  more  and 
more  on  his  nerves,  and  he  did  care. 
Hours,  it  seemed,  dragged  away.  He 
sat  on  the  baggage-truck,  trying  not  to 
listen.  It  was  clear  moonlight,  still,  and 
clear  as  a  bell.  The  gym  where  they  were 
dancing  was  only  a  few  blocks  away,  be- 
hind the  trees,  and  on  the  other  side  of 
the  track  was  open  prairie.  There  wasn't 
a  sound  there  on  the  station  platform  ex- 
cept the  clicking  of  the  telegraph  key, 
and  he  could  hear  the  faint  music  of  the 
violins  and  the  toot-toot  of  the  cornet 
coming  over  the  trees. 

It  was  after  midnight  when  the  train 
thundered  in.  He  was  in  his  seat,  with 
his  hat  pulled  down  over  his  eyes,  when 
the  rest  came  down  the  street  on  the  run 


128  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

and  the  Other  Man,  panting  and  excited, 
bounced  into  the  seat  beside  him.  The 
Other  Man  had  to  tell  about  it,  whether 
anyone  listened  or  not — what  she  said 
and  he  said,  and  how  she  cut  her  dances 
right  and  left  to  sit  'em  out  with  him  and 
came  down  to  within  half  a  block  of  the 
station  to  see  him  off.  And  then  there 
was  a  waltz  that  the  Other  Man  wasn't 
ever  going  to  forget — "  the  finest  waltz 
I  ever  hope  to  hear,  and  that's  a  fact." 
The  Vandalia  Miler  stood  it  for  a  long 
time.  Once  he  sat  up  suddenly  and 
jammed  on  his  hat. 

"  For  heaven's  sake  for^r^  it!  "  he  said. 
"  Aren't  you  ever  going  to  get  over  being 
a  kid  ?  "  The  Vandalia  Miler,  you  see, 
had  had  to  get  over  being  a  kid  in  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  it  didn't  come  so  easy. 

"  Whatever's  wrong  with  you?" 
laughed  the  Other  Man.  "  Never  saw 
anybody  so  peevish  in  my  life !  "  And 
he  began  to  whistle  the  tune  harder  than 
ever. 

The  train  was  a  milk-train.  It  stopped 
at  every  cross-roads.      It   was   stiflingly 


LEFT   BEHIND  129 

hot  and  smelly  in  the  car,  and  the  Other 
Man  kept  on  humming,  steadily  as  a 
pianola,  and  keeping  time  by  snapping 
his  fingers,  but  for  all  that,  the  Van- 
dalia  Miler  finally  dropped  asleep.  He 
dreamed  that  he  was  down  East,  after 
all,  and  winning  the  mile,  down  a  track 
about  like  a  sublimated  skating-rink,  with 
an  audience  of  a  billion  or  two  people,  ris- 
ing to  him  from  a  sort  of  stadium  made 
of  pure  white  marble  and  gold.  He  was 
just  being  heaved  up  in  the  air  by  the 
frantic  populace  when  he  woke  up.  And 
the  Other  Man  was  shaking  him  by  the 
arm  and  telling  him  that  they  were  back 
in  Vandalia.  He  didn't  need  anyone  to 
tell  him  that.  It  was  growing  light  as 
they  stepped  off  the  train — that  dead-to- 
the-world  time  of  night  when  the  lamps 
are  getting  pale.  He  was  just  blinking 
his  eyes  open  and  seeing  the  old  station 
and  the  lumber-yard  and  the  Waldorf 
Cafe,  and  everything  inside  him  seemed 
to  be  caving  in,  when  the  Other  Man, 
still  up  in  the  air  and  keen  as  a  mink,  be- 
gan  to  bray  out  his  everlasting  waltz. 


130  A   BREAK    IN    TRAINING 

The  Vandalia  Miler  jumped  as  though  a 
revolver  had  been  shot  off  just  behind  his 
ear.  He  whirled  round  and  almost 
yelled : 

"For  heaven's  sake,  man,  shut  up!" 
The  Other  Man  looked  at  him  and 
laughed. 

"  I  don't  see  what  license  you've  got  to 
be  so  all-fired  grouchy,"  he  said.  "  If 
you'd  won " 

''Well?"  cried  the  Vandalia  Miler, 
stepping  closer. 

"  It  looked  to  me " 

"  Looked  to  you!  Are  you  calling  me 
a  quitter?  " 

You  must  remember  that  it  had  lasted 
two  whole  days  and  nights  now  and  the 
ends  of  his  nerves  were  all  sticking  out. 

"  Say  it,  will  you?  "  He  dropped  his 
suit-case  on  the  sidewalk  and  clenched  his 
fists.  "  Just  say  it  now — how  did  it  look 
to  you  ? "  And  then,  before  anyone 
guessed  what  was  coming,  he  shot  out 
with  his  fist.  The  Other  Man's  hands 
were  down,  helpless.  He  caught  it  fairly 
on  the  tip  of  the  jaw  and  went  down  in  a 


LEFT    BEHIND  131 

heap,  and  the  Vandaha  Miler  stood  over 
him,  half  waiting  to  swing  again,  half 
scared  at  what  he  had  done.  The  others 
rushed  in  to  pull  them  apart,  but  the 
Other  ]\Ian  just  jumped  up  with  a  grim 
little  laugh,  as  though  it  was  all  a  sort  of 
joke  and  the  Vandalia  Miler  a  kind  of 
wild  man  with  bad  manners.  Then  he 
walked  ahead  with  the  rest.  All  in  all,  it 
was  about  the  completest  thing  he  could 
have  done.  It  left  the  Vandalia  Miler, 
you  see,  quite  on  the  outside.  And  that 
was  the  end  of  Damon  and  Pythias — and 
all  their  plans  and  dreams.  The  next  day 
the  Other  ]\Ian  went  down  East  to  tutor 
for  his  entrance  exams.  The  Vandalia 
Miler  went  to  work  in  the  hardware  store, 
selling  frying-pans  and  shingle  nails. 

The  Vandalia  ]\Iiler  left  the  store  in 
charge  of  the  repair-shop  man  and  started 
home  for  supper.  He  had  just  sold  an 
improved  gasoline  stove  to  a  farmer's 
wife  from  Vienna  Centre  who  had  never 
burned  anything  but  wood,  and  he  was 
consideralily  excited.     lie  swung  up  State 


132  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

Street,  whistling.  There  was  a  bulletin 
in  the  Blade  window  with  letters  in  blue 
ink  splashed  on  it  a  foot  high.  This  is 
what  he  read — what  stopped  his  whist- 
ling short: 

TRIUMPH   OF*  VANDALIA  BOY 

Underneath  was  a  dispatch  with  a  New 
York  date-line,  telling  how  the  Other 
Man  had  won  the  intercollegiate  mile  at 
Mott  Haven  that  afternoon.  He  felt  his 
face  getting  hot.  He  put  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  and  squeezed  his  finger-nails 
into  his  palms  so  that  folks  wouldn't  see. 
There  was  a  beautiful  picture  framed  up 
in  his  mind — a  picture  built  up  of  Sunday 
supplements,  stories  in  magazines,  and  the 
imagination  of  a  young  man  who  had 
never  seen  Mott  Haven,  and  who  stood 
on  a  wooden  sidewalk  on  the  main  street 
of  a  freshwater  town  a  thousand  miles 
away.  It  was  a  sort  of  composite  of 
Henley  and  a  Thanksgiving  game,  and 
the  Other  Man  stood  in  the  foreground 
in  the  afternoon  sunshine,  panting  easily 
and  smiling  politely  at  the  applause.     In 


LEFT   BEHIND  133 

the  two  years  that  the  Other  Man  had 
been  away  he  hadn't  come  back  even  for 
his  vacations,  and  he  was  getting  to  be 
a  we  -  used  -  to  -know  -him  -when  -  he  -  was  - 
young  sort  of  a  man.  There  had  been 
many  stories  about  him  in  the  Blade. 
News  was  rather  scarce  out  there,  and 
they  Hked  to  hear  about  each  other.  And 
every  time  the  Other  Man  did  anything 
the  town  people  felt  somehow  that  Van- 
dalia  had  done  it  and  were  glad.  There 
was  considerable  local  pride  in  Vandalia. 
They  would  do  anything  for  anybody 
who  did  something  for  the  town.  But  the 
Vandalia  Miler  hadn't  learned  this  yet. 

He  got  away  without  being  obliged 
to  talk  to  anybody,  and  hurried  home. 
There,  without  knowing  just  why,  he  un- 
earthed his  old  running  clothes,  and  just 
as  the  sun  was  setting  that  evening  the 
Vandalia  Miler  started  jogging  round 
the  old  dirt  track  at  the  fair  grounds, 
training  again  for  the  mile. 

They  didn't  go  in  very  heavily  for 
sport  in  those  days  in  Vandalia,  and 
everybody  soon  knew  what  he  was  doing 


134  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

and  wondered  why.  The  high-school 
boys  came  over  of  late  afternoons  and 
watched  him  run.  Then  they  got  to  pac- 
ing him,  and  finally  they  asked  him  to 
help  them  get  up  a  team  to  lick  Sugar 
River.  Sugar  River  was  a  town  about 
twenty  miles  north  of  Vandalia.  The 
only  difference  between  the  two  towns  to 
an  outsider  was  that  one  had  an  opera- 
house  and  a  six-story  hotel,  and  the  other 
had  ten  blocks  of  brick  paving.  A  foot- 
ball game  between  Vandalia  and  Sugar 
River  would  have  made  the  '94  Spring- 
field game  look  like  an  international  peace 
congress  at  a  vegetarian  breakfast.  The 
Vandalia  Miler  helped  them  with  the 
team.  He  didn't  know,  of  course,  that  it 
was  about  the  most  important  thing  he'd 
ever  done  in  his  life  and  he  was  thinking 
too  much  of  himself  and  the  Other  Man 
to  be  very  much  interested.  But  he  did 
it  as  well  as  he  knew  how.  Sugar  River 
annihilated  them.  They  lost  every  point. 
It  didn't  especially  increase  Vandalia's 
love  for  Sugar  River. 

The  Vandalia  Miler  was  embarrassed, 


LEFT   BEHIND  135 

but  he  kept  up  his  own  running,  not  train- 
ing enough  to  get  tired  of  it,  or  stale,  but 
just  enough  to  keep  him  fit  and  getting 
better.  Some  days  he  took  a  lot  of  little 
sprints,  some  a  jog  of  five  miles  or  so, 
some  a  rest  or  a  bit  of  tennis,  but  no 
smoking,  and  all  the  time  plenty  of  sleep. 
Sometimes  he'd  try  it  at  sun-up,  before 
the  rest  of  the  town  was  awake,  just  to 
test  his  steam  and  press  himself  a  bit; 
and  sometimes,  on  moonlight  nights, 
when  he  could  see  the  track  plain  as  day, 
he'd  go  over  after  dark  and  whirl  off  his 
mile  at  top  speed,  stripped  to  the  buff — 
racing  through  the  moonlight  with  the 
cool  night  smell  coming  up  from  the  grass 
and  the  cool  wind  blowing  on  him  all 
over.  Those  were  the  times  when  he  even 
forgot  the  Other  Man.  It  seemed  as 
though  he  was  tireless,  eating  up  the  dis- 
tance like  a  ghost  with  a  feeling  all  the 
time  of  Fve-done-this-before-in-the-dawn- 
of-things-a-million-years-ago.  The  next 
day,  when  he  was  back  in  the  hardware 
store,  he  would  smile  inside  at  ordinary 
folks  j)loclding  about  in  their  foolish  store- 


136  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

clothes.  The  point  is,  you  see,  he  began 
to  run  for  the  fun  of  running.  It  was  the 
only  thing  he'd  had  for  company  since 
the  Other  Man  went  away.  By  the  time 
summer  was  over  he  was  brown  as  an 
Indian  and  hard  as  nails  and  he  could 
run  like  a  broncho. 

In  August,  in  Vandalia,  came  the 
Clearwater  County  fair.  It  was  the  big- 
gest fair  in  the  State — more  people,  big- 
ger pumpkins,  fatter  hogs,  taller  corn, 
more  balloons  and  bands  and  red  lemon- 
ade and  noise.  The  fair  grounds  began 
to  fill  up  with  red  thrashing-machines  and 
candy  booths  and  side-show  tents — not 
the  place  for  a  young  man  who  preferred 
to  be  alone.  On  the  afternoon  of  Wednes- 
day, the  third  day  of  the  fair,  the  Van- 
dalia Miler  stopped  at  the  corner  drug- 
store for  a  drink  of  soda-water,  on  his 
way  home.  He  was  just  swallowing  a 
glass  of  Arctic  Mist  and  recalling  that  a 
preparation  known  as  Lemo  Kolo  had 
tasted  just  like  it  a  year  ago,  when  out 
through  the  window,  over  the  colored- 
water  jars,  he  saw  the  Other  Man,  home 


LEFT   BEHIND  137 

again  after  his  triumphs  in  the  vast  and 
gHttering  East,  togged  out  in  very  tricky 
flannels  and  blowing  along  State  Street, 
bowing  right  and  left,  and  beaming  like 
a  fresh-plucked  rose  for  joy  at  getting 
home.  You  might  just  as  well  have 
flashed  a  searchlight  in  his  eyes  at  ten 
paces.  He  was  all  in.  The  two  years 
that  had  passed  rolled  up  like  a  patent 
window-shade  when  the  spring  slips,  and 
he  was  back  at  the  railroad  station,  just 
home  from  Pardee ville,  watching  the 
Other  Man  walk  away  through  the  mel- 
ancholy dawn.  He  saw  him  pushing  open 
the  screen,  and  he  braced  himself  for  an 
instant  to  face  it  out,  cold  and  rather 
haughtily.  Then  he  flung  a  dime  on  the 
counter  and,  red  as  fire,  hurried  out  the 
side  door. 

That  night  the  Blade  published  a  long 
programme  for  Thursday,  the  big  day  at 
the  fair.  There  was  to  be  a  special  ex- 
cursion from  Sugar  River,  a  free-for-all 
trot  and  a  two-fifteen  pace,  the  McHenry 
Zouaves,  the  Diving  Horse,  a  fat  ladies' 
potato  race,  Pavella  the  King  of  the  Tight 


138  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Wire,  a}id — "  an  open  mile  foot-race  for 
the  championship  of  the  world."  That 
was  the  way  the  Blade  put  it.  They 
could  always  be  trusted  in  such  cases  to 
do  the  right  thing.  Of  course  it  was  the 
Other  Man's  crowd  who  had  conceived 
the  idea  of  the  race.  He  had  brought 
some  of  his  friends  home  with  him  from 
the  East  to  show  them  what  the  West  was 
like,  and  they  had  thought  it  would  be 
good  sport  to  make  him  trot  out  and  per- 
form for  the  girls  and  the  merry  villagers. 
"  For  the  championship  of  the  world," 
said  the  Blade,  "  that  this  is  no  mere  jest 
is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  first  among 
the  list  of  entries  appears  the  name  of  our 
famous  young  townsman,  the  present  in- 
tercollegiate champion.  He  informed  a 
representative  of  the  Blade  this  afternoon 
that  he  had  kept  up  his  training  for  just 
such  a  contingency  as  this,  and  that  he 
never  was  in  finer  fettle.  The  scribe 
found  him  at  his  home,  '  The  Elms,'  on 
the  beautiful  estate  north  of  the  city, 
where  he  is  entertaining  a  number  of 
wealthy  young  society  men  from  Eastern 


LEFT   BEHIND  139 

bon-ton  circles,  and  found  him  as  modest 
as  he  was  when  he  left  his  native  town 
two  years  ago.  He  said  that  nothing 
would  please  him  more  than  to  run  at  the 
fair-grounds'  track.  '  For  it  was  here.' 
said  he,  '  that  I  won  my  first  race,  you 
know !  '  " 

"  Oh,  hell! "  said  the  Vandalia  Miler. 
And  then  he  called  up  the  superintendent's 
office  at  the  fair-grounds  and  told  them 
to  enter  him  for  the  mile. 

^  ili  -Jfi  iif,  Jf 

There  was,  in  the  first  place,  a  piping 
hot  August  afternoon,  the  kind  that  they 
have  out  in  the  corn  belt,  when  not  a  drop 
of  rain  has  fallen  for  a  couple  of  months 
and  the  leaves  are  drying  up  on  the  trees 
and  the  grass  is  yellow  and  crackly  under 
foot,  and  the  dust  follows  after  the  farm- 
er's wagon  like  smoke.  Then,  inside  a 
high  board  fence,  was  the  fair-grounds, 
with  big  wooden  halls  here  and  there,  oak- 
trees  with  locusts  singing  away  in  the 
branches,  and  packed  full  of  people  and 
prize  cattle  and  pumpkins  and  lunch-boxes 
and  chewing  candy  and  noise.  There  were 


140  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

farmers  in  their  store-clothes  just  in  from 
thrashing  and  farmers'  girls  in  white 
dresses  with  pink  and  baby-blue  ribbons, 
and,  in  between,  children  with  sticky  pop- 
corn and  red  balloons  and  squawkers. 
There  was  a  "natural  amphitheatre"  with 
benches  running  along  the  side  hill,  where 
the  hushed  crowd  gaped  at  the  spellbinder 
waving  his  arms  beside  the  ice-water 
pitcher.  There  were  prize  pig  pens  and 
sheep  pens,  the  art  hall  with  its  pictures 
of  peaches  tumbling  out  of  baskets  and 
watermelons  just  opened  with  the  knife 
lying  beside  them,  and  the  tents  where 
Diavolo  ate  glass  and  blew  fire  out  of  his 
mouth  and  the  beautiful  young  lady  stood 
out  on  a  platform  by  the  ticket-box,  in 
faded  pink  tights,  with  a  big  wet  snake 
wound  around  her  throat  and  her  span- 
gles blinking  in  the  sunshine.  There  were 
sample  windmills  and  cane-ringing  games, 
and  wherever  there  was  room  a  man 
shaking  popcorn  or  pulling  candy  over  a 
hook,  or  a  damp  little  shed  smelling  of 
vanilla,  where  people  were  eating  ice- 
cream and  drinking  red  lemonade.     You 


LEFT   BEHIND  141 

get  all  that  and  lots  more  going  at  once, 
with  the  barkers  yelling  and  the  sledge- 
hammers thumping  on  the  strength- 
testing  machines  and  the  merry-go-round 
organs  squealing  away,  with  the  sun 
blazing  at  ninety-four  in  the  shade  and 
everywhere  the  smell  of  hot  people  and 
clothes  and  stale  perfume,  of  lemonade 
and  popcorn  and  peanuts  and  dust  and 
trampled  grass — you  take  all  that,  draw  a 
third-of-a-mile  circle  through  the  thick  of 
it,  push  the  crowd  back  a  bit,  and  you 
have  the  Vandalia  track  that  day  as  the 
engine  bell  in  the  judges'  stand  tolled  out 
the  warning  signal  and  the  old  marshal 
on  his  white  circus  horse  rode  down  the 
track  sidewise,  bellowing  out  the  "  mile 
foot  race  fer  the  champeenship  of  the 
world!" 

As  he  caught  the  sharp  command  of  the 
bell — the  same  bell  that  for  years  and 
years  had  called  up  the  trotting  horses 
from  the  stables — the  Vandalia  Miler 
jumped  out  of  his  blanket  in  the  Tight- 
Wire  Man's  tent  and  pushed  through  the 
crowd  to  the  mark.     The  farmers'  girls 


142  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

giggled  as  they  saw  his  bare  legs  and  a 
train  of  small  boys  followed  him,  gaping 
solemnly  in  the  manner  of  those  deter- 
mined to  see  just  how  it  was  done.  The 
Vandalia  Miler  was  very  pale.  As  he 
took  his  place  on  the  starting  line  he  was 
the  only  one  there  ready  to  run.  He 
stared  straight  ahead  at  the  people  edg- 
ing up  closer  and  closer  to  the  little  lane 
that  was  left  for  them  to  run  through, 
licked  his  dry  lips  and  rubbed  nervously 
his  bare  left  arm.  There  they  were,  the 
farmers  and  the  townspeople,  the  men  and 
the  girls  that  he  and  the  Other  Man  had 
grown  up  with  and  gone  to  school  with. 
And  he  felt  that  if  he  could  beat  him — 
so  slim  and  smiling  and  sure — beat  him 
in  Vandalia,  there  and  then,  with  Van- 
dalia and  the  county  and  the  old  crowd 

looking  on The  engine-bell  clanged 

again  peremptorily. 

"Coming!  Coming!"  Somebody  was 
shouting  uproariously  over  the  heads  of 
the  crowd.  A  big  tan  buckboard  drove 
in  between  the  surreys  and  lumber- 
wagons,  and  out  hopped  the  Other  Man, 


LEFT    BEHIND  143 

all  wrapped  up  in  a  great  plaid  ulster,  his 
bare  ankles  showing  underneath  it.  He 
threw  off  his  coat  and  stood  there  laugh- 
ing and  shaking  hands  with  his  friends — 
in  his  'varsity  running  clothes,  the  crim- 
son ribbon  across  his  chest.  The  Van- 
dalia  Miler  saw  him  and  gripped  his  fin- 
gers tight.  It  seemed  to  him  that  the 
crowd  suddenly  became  still;  the  uproar 
of  the  squawkers  and  carousel  organ 
sounded  vague  and  far  away.  At  the 
same  moment  there  was  a  stir  just  under 
the  stand,  and  a  big,  tow-headed  fellow 
began  to  pull  off  his  overalls  and  shirt. 
"  Hey,  there!  "  he  called  up  to  the  start- 
ers; "  I  want  to  get  in  this !  "  The  crowd 
began  to  laugh  good-naturedly,  but  the 
Vandalia  Miler  didn't  laugh  at  all.  He 
was  trying  to  remember  where  he  had 
seen  this  farmer's  face.  On  the  sleeve- 
less jersey  which  the  tow-headed  man 
wore  underneath  his  flannel  shirt  was  a 
spot  cleaner  than  the  rest.  It  was  where 
an  initial  had  been  torn  away.  He 
turned  to  find  the  Other  Man  in  front  of 
him,  smiling  and  holding  out  his  hand. 


144  A   BREAK   IN  TRAINING 

He  took  it,  scarcely  knowing  what  he 
did. 

"  So  we're  going  to  have  it  out,  right 
here  and  now,"  laughed  the  Other  Man, 
looking  him  straight  in  the  eyes. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Vandalia  Miler.  His 
mouth  was  all  cotton,  so  it  came  in  a  quick 
sort  of  whisper.     "  Yes,"  he  repeated. 

"  I  hope,"  began  the  Other  Man,  and 
then  he  paused  and  grinned  a  little  and 
blushed.  "  It's  been  quite  a  while — I  hope 

"      All    at    once    someone    cried — 

"  Now,  ready!  "  The  crowd  that  had  ap- 
parently been  pushing  and  shoving  aim- 
lessly about  the  judges'  stand  closed  into 
a  compact  mass  and  out  came  a  yell — one 
of  those  old-fashioned,  wild-Indian,  give- 
'em-the-axe,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing 
yells,  with  Sugar  River  at  the  end. 
"  Sugar  River  —  Sugar  River  —  Sugar 
River! "  three  times,  like  that.  It  was 
like  marching  into  the  middle  of  an  Irish 
picnic  with  a  brass  band  playing  "  Boyne 
Water."  A  hoot  and  a  howl  came  back 
from  all  along  the  track  and  the  crowd — 
all  Vandalia,  it  seemed — began  to  stam- 


LEFT   BEHIND  145 

pede  in  toward  the  judges'  stand.  The 
Vandalia  Miler  grabbed  a  couple  of  hand- 
fuls  of  long  grass  from  the  turf  at  the 
side  of  the  track  and  wadded  them  up  in 
his  hands  for  "corks."  His  face  wasn't 
as  pale  now  and  a  new  look  jumped  into 
his  eyes.  He  turned  to  the  Other  Man, 
yelling  above  the  uproar  of  the  crowd : 

"  You  want  to  look  out  for  him:  He's 
a  ringer,  and  he's  running  for  Sugar 
River!"  And  in  the  thick  of  the  noise 
and  the  pushing  and  the  dust,  the  starter 
swung  his  hat  downward  and  with  the 
single  cry  of  "  Go !  "  sent  the  three  run- 
ners away. 

The  Other  Man  cut  across  from  the 
outside  like  a  flash  and  took  the  pole. 
The  Vandalia  Miler  closed  in  behind, 
tight  on  his  heels,  eyes  hooked  to  his 
back,  just  below  the  shoulders.  The  tow- 
headed  man  trailed  the  two,  big-boned 
and  heavy,  but  striding  long  and  strong 
as  a  horse.  Into  the  crowd  they  went — 
a  sort  of  curving  chute,  walled  in  by  faces 
and  clothes  smelling  of  popcorn  and  dust, 
and   a   baking   sun   beating   down    from 


146  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

overhead — like  three  machines,  stride  and 
stride  ahke,  the  Other  Man  leading  the 
way  Hke  a  race-horse,  strong  and  confi- 
dent, as  if  he  were  only  playing  with  the 
game.  Out  into  the  open  and  the  cooler 
air  of  the  back-stretch  they  swung,  past 
the  red  thrashers  and  pig  pens,  round 
the  lower  turn,  and  toward  the  judges' 
stand  again.  They  were  going  like  a 
three-horse  tandem,  the  Vandalia  Miler 
so  close  up  that  the  dirt  from  the  Other 
Man's  spikes  splashed  his  shins.  He 
could  see  indistinctly  the  crowd  still  jost- 
ling and  shouting  under  the  wire,  see  the 
lobster-red  face  and  white  mustache  of 
old  Skerritt,  the  starter,  leaning  out  on 
the  rail  of  the  judges'  stand  toward  them 
and  bellowing  through  his  hands  some- 
thing about  beating  out  Sugar  River.  He 
felt  the  mass  open  up  and  close  in  after 
them,  the  suffocating  walled-in  chute 
growing  hotter  and  heavier,  the  pull  of 
the  second  quarter  beginning  to  drag  hard 
on  his  legs  and  wind,  and  at  the  time  he 
saw  plainly  that  the  Other  Man  was.  if 
anything,    increasing   the   pace — pushing 


LEFT    BEHIND  147 

ahead  like  a  doped  race-horse,  at  a  half- 
mile  gait,  forgetting  that  there  was  any- 
body behind  him.  The  pace  held — 
screwed  up  tight — stride  and  stride  alike, 
round  the  upper  turn  and  into  the  open 
again.  Out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  he 
saw  a  big  mullen  leaf — one  of  his  old  mile- 
stones— slip  past  their  feet,  the  beginning 
of  the  third  quarter.  But  the  shade  of  a 
let-down  in  the  pace  which  he  expected 
there  and  which  prepares  for  the  last 
quarter  never  came.  As  they  struck  the 
cooler  air — it  was  like  getting  out  of  a 
cornfield  into  the  road — the  noise  about 
the  judges'  stand — Sugar  River  and  Van- 
dalia  all  mixed  together — came  reaching 
across  the  field  bigger  than  ever,  and 
every  time  it  puffed  out  louder  the  Other 
Man's  back  jumped  ahead  a  bit.  The 
Vandalia  ]\riler  stuck  close — not  press- 
ing, not  letting  himself  lose  an  inch.  He 
was  holding  every  ounce  of  steam,  run- 
ning every  stride  with  his  head.  Round 
the  lower  turn  they  pounded,  every  dozen 
strides  or  so  letting  slip  another  link,  and 
then,  just  as  they  were  rounding  into  the 


148  A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

straightaway  there  suddenly  puffed  up 
from  the  judges'  stand  a  great  roar  of 
"  Sugar  River!  "  At  the  same  instant  he 
heard  a  hoarse  breath  just  behind  his 
neck,  an  arm  bumped  his  elbow,  and  the 
tow-headed  man  pushed  by  on  the  outside 
and  went  up  after  the  leader.  The  crowd 
down  the  track  was  going  wild.  Old 
Skerritt  was  banging  the  engine-bell  for 
the  last  lap  like  a  fireman  going  to  a  fire. 
The  Vandalia  Miler  didn't  shift  his  eyes 
a  hair's  breadth  from  the  Other  Man's 
back.  He  was  surprised  at  himself  to 
see  how  cool  he  was ;  how  he  was  calcu- 
lating whether  the  Other  Man  was  tire- 
less or  had  merely  lost  his  head,  whether 
the  Sugar  River  man  could  make  good 
with  his  bluff  or  whether,  as  they  neared 
the  crowd,  he  was  just  playing  to  the  gal- 
lery. In  the  next  two-twenty  he  would 
know.  There  was  more  than  a  quarter 
yet  to  go,  and  he  tried  to  feel  it  all  as  a 
unit  and  know  just  how  much  he  had  left. 
Past  the  stand  and  into  the  crowd  again 
— the  Sugar  River  man's  chin  slewed 
round   a  bit.      He  was   lifting   into  the 


LEFT    BEHIND  149 

sprint!  And  a  quarter  yet  to  go!  He 
saw  the  Other  Man's  back  jump  forward 
as  he  met  the  challenge,  saw  them  fight- 
ing, shoulder  to  shoulder,  knew  the  mo- 
ment had  come,  that  here  and  now  the 
race  was  to  be  lost  or  won,  and  he 
squeezed  his  grass  corks,  shut  his  eyes, 
and  bore  on  hard.  For  a  dozen  strides 
he  fought,  like  a  man  under  water  trying 
to  get  to  the  surface,  when  suddenly, 
from  the  edge  of  the  track  ahead  came  a 
quick,  triumphant  cheer.  He  opened  his 
eyes.  The  Sugar  River  man  was  ahead! 
He  had  squeezed  past  and  was  on  the 
pole,  drawing  away  from  the  Other  Man, 
But  it  was  not  the  Sugar  River  yell  that 
was  echoing  across  the  track.  It  was  a 
new  and  different  cry — nervous,  compact, 
fierce,  relentless.  It  forced  itself  through 
the  general  hullabaloo  and  dominated  it, 
and  suddenly  it  came  clear  to  the  Van- 
dalia  Miler's  ears — the  old  drum-beat 
cheer — his  cheer — the  one  he  and  the 
Other  Man  had  taught  the  school  before 
the  team  went  to  Pardeeville.  And  his 
name  was  at  the  end.    Down  came  a  pair. 


I50  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

of  arms  a  rod  or  two  in  front  of  him  and 
out  it  smashed  again — that  wonderful  yell 
with  the  sudden  shift  of  the  beat  in  the 
fifth  line,  like  getting  under  a  big  weight, 
all  together,  and  shoving  after  you've 
been  pounding  it.  He  fought  on  in  a 
dizzy  sort  of  trance,  not  knowing  what 
was  happening,  but  feeling  suddenly 
light  and  confident  and  strong.  He  felt 
himself  gaining — felt  that  somehow  the 
backs  of  the  other  two  men  were  drawing 
irresistibly  nearer.  Someone  ran  along 
beside  him,  waving  a  hat.  "  You've  got 
him !  You've  got  him !  Keep  it  up ! 
Keep  it  up !  "  the  man  cried.  "  Van- 
dalia!  Vandalia!  Vandalia!"  All  at 
once  it  came  to  him  that  he  Jiad  got  him — 
got  the  Other  Man — got  the  ringer — that 
Vandalia  was  going  to  beat  Sugar  River 
and  they  were  calling  on  him  to  come. 
The  cheer  shot  out  again — a  little  farther 
ahead — as  fast  as  the  beat  stopped  it  was 
caught  up  and  carried  on.  Someone — it 
was  the  boys  he'd  trained  who  had  done 
it — had  strung  relays  all  round  the  track. 
It  became  a  regular  bombardment.     The 


LEFT    BEHIND  151 

crowd  listened  —  wavered  —  and  broke 
loose.  They  came  swarming  down  from 
the  seats  on  the  side  hill  and  over  the  rail. 
They  followed  along  behind  in  a  drove, 
yelling  like  Indians.  It  looked  like  a  pic- 
ture of  the  flight  from  Pompeii  with 
everybody  laughing — boys  and  men  and 
girls  stumbling  along  in  the  grass  at  the 
side  of  the  track  and  scuffling  up  the  dust 
behind.  He  could  hear  them  laughing 
and  screaming:  "Keep  it  up!  Keep  it 
up!  "  and  "  Beat  him!  Beat  him!  Van- 
dalia!  Vandalia!"  and  steadily  all  the 
time  from  behind  and  in  front  came  that 
drum-beat  cheer,  ripping  and  pounding 
out  above  the  rest.  The  relays  crossed 
each  other  and  overlapped,  taking  it  up 
and  beating  it  in — swinging  it,  jamming 
it  at  'em.  It  seemed  as  though  that  whole 
fair-ground  had  jumped  together  in  a 
twinkling  and  was  calling  on  him  to  come. 
It  all  hit  him  in  a  flash — shivered  up  his 
backbone.  He  had  stayed  behind,  but  he 
was  somebody,  after  all,  and  he  stood  for 
somebody  and  they  stood  for  him  and  ex- 
pected  things   of  him.     He   forgot   the 


152  A   BREAK   IN  TRAINING 

Other  Man,  forgot  himself.  He  was 
Vandaha  now,  and  VandaHa  must  smash 
Sugar  River.  It  was  more  than  getting 
even,  more  than  winning;  it  was  fighting 
for  his  friends,  for  his  town,  for  his  coun- 
try. His  feet  seemed  hfted  from  the 
ground. 

Maybe  Vandalia  was  a  dull  place  to 
live  in,  but  it  was  everlastingly  healthy. 
All  his  running  and  going-to-bed-with- 
the-chickens  came  back  to  help  him  now. 
Rounding  into  the  stretch,  he  took  the  bit 
in  his  teeth  and  turned  everything  loose. 
With  every  stride  he  seemed  to  pull  the 
Sugar  River  man's  back  nearer,  hand  over 
hand.  His  elbow  bumped  an  arm  and 
he  heard  the  Other  Man  gasping  out, 
"  Beat  him !  Beat  him !  "  as  he  passed  by. 
Nothing  could  have  stopped  him  then. 
There  were  fifty  yards  left.  He  shut  his 
eyes  again;  his  elbow  bumped  an  arm, 
then  the  engine-bell  was  clanging  over- 
head, and  the  tape  hit  his  chest.  The 
crowd  closed  in,  there  was  a  great  uproar 
all  around  him,  and  he  turned  just  in 
time  to  see  the  Sugar  River  man  go  down 


LEFT   BEHIND  153 

and  out  about  six  feet  short  of  the  line, 
and  to  catch  the  Other  Man  in  his  arms 
as  he  drove  forward  and  fainted  clear 
away. 

He  picked  him  up  like  a  child,  and, 
spent  as  he  was,  carried  him  into  the 
Tight-Wire  Man's  tent.  Outside  the 
crowd  cheered  and  howled,  and  pushed 
up  against  the  canvas  walls,  and  from  the 
distance  came  the  boom  of  the  band, 
marching  toward  them  across  the  field. 
He  swabbed  on  w^itch-hazel  desperately — 
panting,  dizzy  with  excitement  and  happi- 
ness, and  a  queer,  happy-weepy  remorse. 
The  Other  Man  opened  his  eyes  and 
blinked. 

"  Bill  " — he  grinned  the  best  he  could 
and  held  out  his  hand — "  I  guess  we've 
been  fools  long  enough."  Then  he  got 
tired  again.  "  It  was  a  great  race,"  he 
said,  without  opening  his  eyes.  The  Van- 
dalia  Miler  swabbed  on  the  witch-hazel 
the  harder.  "  Yes !  "  he  panted ;  "  Yes !  " 
He  meant  that  he  thought  it  had  been 
long  enougli.  Somehow  he  couldn't  re- 
memljcr  any  words.    And  then  the  crowd 


154  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

pushed  in.  The  Other  Man  raised  him- 
self on  his  elbow. 

"  Go  out  to  them,  Bill,"  he  said;  "  I'm 
all  right.  You  don't  want  to  forget — 
you're  '  champeen  '  of  the  world !  " 

They  grabbed  him  up,  protesting,  lifted 
him  on  their  shoulders  and  carried  him 
out  of  the  tent.  He  felt  the  cooler  air 
and  he  saw  the  faces  turned  toward  him 
and  heard  the  cheers  and  cries,  and  then 
they  marched  out  to  the  people — his  own 
people  at  last — with  the  band  booming 
away  at  the  head. 

That,  in  a  way,  is  about  what  they've 
been  doing  to  him  ever  since,  out  there 
in  Vandalia.  At  least  that  is  what  Star- 
buck  said  as  he  told  us  the  story — we 
who  had  run  together  and  played  together 
and  were  back  from  East  and  West  to 
see  another  class  day,  to  tell  the  old 
stories,  run  the  old  races  over  again, 
swing  home  again  with  the  pack  through 
the  frosty  autumn,  toward  the  lights  of 
the  Square.  Starbuck,  you  see,  was  the 
Other  Man. 

"  They've  just  nominated  him  for  gov- 


LEFT   BEHIND  155 

ernor  out  in  our  State,"  said  he,  "  and 
they're  telHng  the  story  of  that  race  all 
the  way  from  South  River  Junction  to 
the  North  State  line.  I'm  one  of  Bill's 
spellbinders;  that's  why  I  tell  it  so  well. 
He's  our  Favorite  Son  now,  and  he's 
only  just  begun."  Starbuck  took  a  couple 
of  brisk  pulls  at  his  cigar  and  blew  a  big 
cloud  of  smoke  toward  the  ceiling. 

"  Begins  to  look."  said  he,  cheerfully, 
"  as  though  I  was  the  man  who  was  left 
behind." 


WINGS    OF    CLAY 


WINGS    OF    CLAY 

IT  was  his  last  race.  He  might  never — 
in  that  busy,  serious  "  afterward  " — 
even  think  of  wearing  a  spiked  shoe 
again.  He  would  run,  of  course — for 
fun.  But  even  were  he  some  day  to  run 
a  race,  never  again  could  he  stand  just 
as  he  stood  now — fit  as  it  was  possible 
for  him  to  be.  his  four  years'  experience 
behind  him,  the  level  track  down  which 
he  had  flung  himself  so  many  times  call- 
ing him  for  the  last  time  to  come.  And 
it  was  the  race,  too.  He  and  Eleven — 
"  that  man  Eleven,"  as  we  called  him, 
had  met  at  last.  The  instant  had  come 
when  he  must  put  everything  to  the 
touch  and  beat  his  best ;  win  or — some- 
thing breaks. 

He  was  the  fastest  man  we  had.     He 
had    come    out    on    the    track    one    May 
'59 


l6o  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

morning  in  his  Freshman  year,  explain- 
ing that  he  had  never  worn  a  spiked  shoe, 
and  had  then  slipped  along  a  hundred 
yards  in  eleven  seconds.  The  trainer 
called  him  back  and  asked  him  who  he 
was.  Within  the  week  the  men  with  the 
initials  were  considering  what  was  going 
to  happen  and  the  second-string  men  had 
come  to  their  annual  decision  that  there 
was  no  use  trying  for  the  team  until 
next  year.  He  was  so  obviously  born  a 
sprinter  that,  like  a  lawyer  or  a  doctor, 
he  had  a  sort  of  manner  of  this  kind. 

One  who  knew  about  such  things 
could  see  broken  records  in  the  way  he 
thought,  and  talked,  and  bore  himself, 
almost  as  much  as  in  his  lithe,  compact, 
nervous  body.  As  you  sat  beside  him 
in  the  drowsy  air  of  the  lecture-room,  he 
would  suddenly  start — particularly  if  it 
were  well  along  in  the  season,  and  the 
men  were  getting  just  a  bit  fine — and  per- 
haps his  shoe  would  smartly  rap  against 
the  footrest.  Not  understanding,  you 
would  inwardly  wish  that  he  had  more 
repose  of  manner,  and  never  suspect  just 


WIXGS    OF   CLAY  16 1 

what  the  thrill  was  that  had  so  suddenly 
snapped  him  from  his  dreams.  A  few 
hours  later,  when  you  both  were  running 
trials  together,  and  the  pistol  really  did 
ring  out,  you  would  wonder  why  he  beat 
you  on  the  start.  With  a  hair-trigger 
command  of  his  muscles,  he  had  the 
nerves  of  a  cart-horse.  His  only  sort  of 
worry  was  the  anxiety  to  do  the  thing  he 
had  done  before,  well  enough  to  please 
himself. 

There  were  four  of  them  in  the  finals — 
the  two  lay-figures  who  had  managed  to 
qualify,  he  and  the  other  man.  Every- 
body knew  that  it  was  his  day,  that  he  had 
waited  for  this.  Everybody  was  whisper- 
ing about  him  and  pointing  him  out  as  he 
strolled  across  the  turf  from  the  field- 
house,  a  sort  of  careless  Mercury.  He 
was  exceedingly  graceful  and  good-look- 
ing and  "  different  "  and  he  knew  that, 
too,  and  without  knowing  it  would  have 
been  very  unhappy.  It  was  part  of  that 
which  put  him  past  a  man  ten  inches  from 
the  tape — this  sureness  of  himself — a 
something   of   which    the   literal-minded 


l62  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

were  not  aware.  Maybe  vanity  is  per- 
missible when  one  runs  in  even  time. 

Standing  just  behind  the  mark  and  gaz- 
ing down  the  track,  he  took  a  long  satisfy- 
ing breath  and  patted  his  chest  comfort- 
ably. He  could  see  Eleven  just  trotting 
across  the  green  from  the  field-house.  It 
was  a  way  the  latter  had — a  vivid  appre- 
ciation of  dramatic  values.  Eleven  was 
the  sort  of  man  who  wore  his  medals  and 
was  fond  of  entering  a  preposterous  num- 
ber of  events  in  indoor  winter  meets, 
where  no  one  worth  while  was  running, 
and  of  winning  race  after  race  with  a 
bored  air  while  the  brass  band  boomed 
in  the  gallery. 

"  Ah !  "  he  nodded,  with  the  politest 
rising  inflection  as  his  rival  trotted  up. 
Eleven  nodded  back  and  whistled  cheerily 
between  his  teeth.  His  racing  clothes 
looked  as  though  they  had  been  made 
from  a  museum  battle-flag.  That's  what 
he  wanted.  It  showed  that  he  had  been 
there  before.     Eleven  grinned. 

"  I'm  goin'  to  lose  you  fellows,"  he 
said. 


WINGS   OF   CLAY  163 

The  fiendish  wail  of  the  starter's  whis- 
tle mounted  up  and  pulsated  in  the  warm, 
grass-scented  air.  He  heard  it — pirouet- 
ting for  a  dozen  paces  down  the  course — 
as  a  battery-horse  hears  the  bugle.  De- 
tails eliminated  themselves  and  he  some- 
how grasped  firmly  what  he  had  only 
touched  before.  It  was  as  though  the 
fragrant  summer  day,  the  glimmer  of  rib- 
bons and  smell  of  grass,  the  glory  of  his 
strength,  the  race  and  the  winning  of  it, 
were  distilled  into  a  nectar  which  he  was 
just  about  to  drink. 

"  On  your  marks !  " 

Eleven,  projecting  a  withering,  who- 
the-deuce-are-you  look  at  the  starter,  be- 
gan to  paw  out  with  his  spiked  shoe,  and 
pack  with  expert  nicety,  a  hole  for  his 
rear  foot.  The  two  who  didn't  count 
kneeled  to  their  task  with  playful  sighs  of 
self-commiseration.  With  his  right  foot 
firmly  braced  a  few  inches  behind,  and 
perfectly  parallel  with  the  left  one,  his 
thumbs  and  first  fingers  spanning  the 
starting  line  and  his  weight  resting  easily 
on  his  right  knee,  he  gazed  down  along 


164  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

the  white  strings,  which,  fencing  each 
runner  into  his  narrow  path,  stretched 
to  the  finish  Hne.  As  his  eye  set  hun- 
grily on  the  crimson  thread  which  in  less 
than  a  dozen  seconds  was  to  be  broken  by 
the  breast  of  the  winner,  he  had  to  jam 
his  fingers  hard  into  the  cinders  to  hold 
back  the  sudden  impulse  to  leap  the  dis- 
tance at  a  bound. 

He  could  "  feel  "  that  distance  in  a 
single  mental  impression,  as  a  sort  of 
line-of-beauty  curve,  with  a  sweep  up- 
ward for  the  dive  at  the  start,  a  sus- 
tained middle-distance  line,  and  another 
sweep  upward  for  the  climax  at  the  end, 
just  as  you  feel  the  line  the  lash  will 
take  when  you  are  about  to  crack  a  whip. 
Only  two  things  broke  this  unity — the 
separate  strides — about  fifty  of  them — 
and  two  breaths,  one  at  the  start  and  one 
just  beyond  the  fifty-yard  mark. 

"  Ready !  "  snapped  the  starter. 

He  raised  himself  slightly,  screwed  his 
rear  foot  more  firmly  against  the  brace, 
and  held  himself  on  edge.  Eleven  gave 
a  hoarse,  short  cough  and  spat  out  his 


WINGS   OF   CLAY  165 

gum.  The  two  lay  figures  grinned 
weakly. 

"  Set !  "  commanded  the  starter. 

Four  pair  of  legs  drew  taut  as  bow- 
strings. At  the  word  there  was  some- 
thing like  a  click  inside  his  head  and  a 
hundred  yards  away,  in  thin  air  above  the 
finish  line,  a  pendulum  set  swinging. 
None  but  he  knew  of  it,  not  even  he  could 
see  it,  but  out  of  the  hundreds  of  times 
that  he  had  hurled  his  body  toward  a  cer- 
tain crimson  streak,  always  wdth  the 
thought  of  catching  something  before  it 
slipped  away,  he  had  involuntarily  con- 
structed a  material  object  to  correspond 
to  the  mental  impression.  You  will  re- 
call in  that  tale  of  Poe's,  the  pendulum 
whose  knife  swung  back  and  forth  above 
the  inquisitor's  victim.  This  pendulum 
was  something  like  that — a  lofty,  sinis- 
ter thing,  swinging  there  in  the  air,  in- 
visible, just  above  the  tape.  He  could 
hear  within  him  the  start  of  its  fatalistic 
click  at  the  word  "  Set!  "  As  the  four 
runners  strained  forward,  in  the  crouch- 
ing start,  until  their  centers  of  gravity 


l66  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

hung  so  delicately  that  the  release  of  a 
thread  of  muscle  would  project  them  into 
the  course,  the  slow,  relentless  second- 
beat  of  the  pendulum,  "Cli-i-ck! — 
Cla-a-ck !  "  grew  more  and  more  pain- 
fully distinct.  With  the  throb  of  it  in  his 
brain,  the  silent  crowd  down  the  track — 
silent,  but  waiting  only  to  welcome  him — 
he  seemed  to  feel,  by  a  sort  of  second- 
sight,  the  starter  put  his  hand  above  his 
head.  His  right  leg,  the  rear  one,  stifif- 
ened  until  it  was  almost  straight  and  then, 
as  they  leaned  forward,  straining — strain- 
ing— he  felt  the  finger  hook  around  the 
trigger  and 

"They  were  off! 

He  had  timed  the  start  so  delicately 
that  his  rear  foot  had  sprung  from  the 
mark  when  Eleven  caught  the  shot,  and 
the  vicious  snap  of  the  pistol  seemed  but 
to  follow  his  start  and  lash  him  across 
the  back.  People  said  afterward  that  he 
had  beaten  the  pistol.  This  was  not  true. 
He  had  merely  left  the  mark  at  the  pre- 
cise instant  of  the  shot.  A  mental  impulse 
is  one  thing;  a  muscle  in  motion  is  quite 


WINGS   OF  CLAY  167 

another.  He  had  merely  sent  the  im- 
pulse of  the  start  burning  along  his 
nerves  the  precisely  proper  fraction  of 
a  watch-tick  before  the  pistol  flashed  be- 
hind him.  It  was  not  chance.  Some- 
thing had  hold  of  him. 

As  he  dove  off  the  mark,  out  and  up- 
ward, with  the  pistol  shot  stinging  every 
ounce  of  energy  into  a  rush  for  release, 
this  something  within  him  seemed  about 
to  whirl  him  off  his  feet.  He  rippled  up 
into  his  stride  as  a  well-executed  cadenza 
ripples  up  the  scale.  A  spasmodic  gasp 
of  delight  puffed  out  toward  him  from 
the  finish  line.  The  crowd  had  seen  four 
statues  leap  into  life  before  the  snap  of 
the  pistol  had  been  carried  to  their  ears; 
four  white  patches  sweep  up  a  rapid  in- 
cline into  erectness,  and  then,  as  a  tiny 
smoke-wreath  floated  off  above  the  green, 
four  vibrating  bundles  of  speed  were 
bearing  down  upon  them.  To  those  at 
the  tape,  the  runners  swelled  into  view 
almost  as  though  they  were  being  watched 
through  the  large  end  of  an  opera  glass. 
He  could  feel  himself  acting  this  out  as 


i68  A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

his  piston-rod  stride  ate  up  space.  He 
forgot  the  other  man.  Every  muscle  and 
sense  of  him  was  self-centered  in  the  act 
of  reaching  the  tape.  Legs,  arms,  lungs 
— every  joint  and  bounding  muscle — 
swirled  into  a  burning  unit  of  automatic 
action, 

"Cli-ick— Cla-ack!" 

Now  they  were  but  a  couple  of  strides 
from  the  fifty-yard  mark.  Interestedly, 
as  something  pleasantly  incidental,  he 
caught  the  hiss  of  Eleven's  breath.  Shrill 
and  more  shrill  was  the  swirl  of  warm  air 
past  his  ears.  The  men  who  leaned  over 
the  finish-line  could  see  the  loose  stuff 
of  his  racing  clothes  held  in  stiff-blown, 
intricate  wrinkles  like  the  infinitely  trou- 
bled drapery  of  the  Nike  of  Samothrace. 
He  was  running  with  every  inch  of  him. 

"Cli-ick— Cla-ack!" 

He  was  past  the  fifty  now  and  there 
were,  he  could  somehow  feel,  but  four 
beats  more — only  a  score  or  so  of  strides 
in  which  to  leap  upon  and  clutch  the  pen- 
dulum before  it  started  its  eleventh  swing. 
At  that  instant  the  ribbons  fluttered  like 


WINGS    OF   CLAY  169 

a  kaleidoscope  and  a  din  rolled  out  from 
the  stands  that  drowned  the  wind-swirl  in 
his  ears.  Lifted  by  it  he  felt  himself  run- 
ning as  one  runs  in  dreams. 

"Cli-ick!"' 

Eleven's  breath  was  lost  behind  and 
the  red  thread  shone  but  thirty  feet  away. 
Arms  stretched  frantically  over  the  ropes 
that  walled  the  track  and  out  of  the  gen- 
eral din  came  separate  entreating  cries. 

"Cla-ack!" 

The  timers  leaned  toward  him  scarce 
a  rod  away.  He  could  see  them  there. 
squeezing  their  watches  in  both  fists — 
see  some  one,  who  had  slipped  through 
the  lines  and  was  crouching  under  the 
worsted,  pounding  the  empty  air  as 
though  he  w^ere  beating  a  drum. 

"Cli-ick!" 

All  at  once  he  knew  it.  He  was  as  cer- 
tain as  though  a  real  pendulum  swung 
there  before  his  eyes. 

He  would  breast  the  tape  before  the 
tenth  beat. 

The  instantaneous  certainty  was  like  a 
spur  that  roweled  him  deep.     For  an  in- 


170  A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

stant  he  felt  as  perhaps  a  trotter  feels 
when  at  top  speed  he  "  breaks,"  while 
arms  reached  toward  him  and  the  timers' 
thumbs  trembled  over  their  stop-watches. 
Then  all  that  was  in  him  burst  out  at 
once  in  the  triumphant  leap  toward  vic- 
tory. 

And  he  was  ploughing  over  the  cinders 
on  his  face  ten  inches  short  of  the  tape. 
Everything  went  black. 

Then  he  was  lying  on  the  grass  with 
his  head  in  somebody's  hands.  There  was 
a  burning  cramp  in  his  left  leg  and  some- 
one was  gingerly  feeling  of  the  hot  mus- 
cles a  bit  above  the  knee. 

"  Ouch !  "    He  winced  and  drew  away. 

"  Broken  tendon,"  said  the  man  on  the 
ground. 

He  looked  up  with  the  far-away  eyes 
of  one  whose  body  has  been  brought  back 
to  earth  while  his  spirit  is  yet  among  the 
gods.  Through  the  legs  of  those  crowd- 
ing about  him  he  could  see  Eleven — who 
had  shot  twenty  yards  beyond  the  tape  be- 
fore he  stopped — loping  back  with  the 
regulation  veteran's  prance,  arms  well  up, 


WINGS   OF   CLAY  171 

high  on  his  toes,  tossing  a  careless  glance 
at  the  timers  as  he  came. 

"  Ten  flat !  "  cried  a  voice. 

As  something  far  off,  he  saw  Eleven 
nod,  allow  a  blanket  to  be  thrown  about 
his  shoulders  and,  as  he  came  panting 
over,  stage-whisper  out  of  the  side  of  his 
mouth  a  deprecating — "  Cinch !  " 

"  Hard  luck,  old  man,"  panted  Eleven 
cheerfully,  passing  by.  The  crowd  closed 
in  tighter.  There  was  a  hum  of  *'  Ten 
flat!  "  and  "  Even  time!  "  and  somebody 
was  crying  "  He  did  it  in  ten  flat,  Jimmy, 
and  you  had  him  beaten  out  a  good  ten 
yards!  Do  you  hear,  Jimmy,  ten  yards 
ahead  of  even  time !  " 

"  Ten  yards."  He  winced  again  and 
closed  his  eyes.  It  meant  that  he  had  just 
missed  running  the  race  that  no  man  has 
ever  run.  The  other  man  had  merely 
won.  He  had  touched  that  limit  beyond 
which  human  springs  and  levers  and  the 
power  behind  them,  however  strong,  can 
never  go. 

Faces  were  peering  down  at  him,  feet 
jostled  close  to  his  side.    He  looked  about 


172  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

him,  bored  and  somewhat  protestingly, 
raised  himself,  and,  leaning  over,  felt  ab- 
sentmindedly  of  his  leg.  Then  he  cringed 
and  gave  another  quick  little  grunt. 

"  And  any  old  grayhound  could  do  bet- 
ter." He  looked  up,  grinning.  "  Won't 
somebody  please  take  me  away  ?  " 


WITH    THE    HOUNDS 


WITH   THE    HOUNDS 

OF  course  you  became  very  sore  about 
it.  you  thought  that  running  was 
an  awful  bore  and  you  were  never  going 
to  race  again.  You  had  trained  hard  for 
the  mile  that  spring  and  given  up  things 
— pounded  round  the  dusty  track  while 
the  others  were  up  at  Riverside  canoeing 
on  the  river,  gone  to  bed  while  the  rest 
were  in  town  at  the  "  Pops  "  or  smoking 
and  singing  close  harmony  on  the  steps 
of  Hohvorthy,  rubbed  the  bloom  off  the 
loveliest  weeks  in  the  year  and — and  then 
in  the  end  you  were  beaten.  Of  course, 
you  knew  that  you  weren't  a  sprinter  and 
you  ought  to  have  known  that  they  were 
running  those  first  three-quarters  too 
slow ;  you  ought  to  have  swung  out  in  the 
lead  and  let  that  man  Jenkins  eat  his 
heart  out  trying  to  keep  up  with  you  for 
three  long  laps  and  then  you  might  have 
>75 


176  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

beaten  him  out  at  the  finish.  But  it  wasn't 
so  easy  to  know  this,  that  muggy  May 
afternoon  when  the  sun  was  beating  down 
Hke  August  and  you  couldn't  get  a  decent 
breath  and  you  were  running  fourth, 
locked  very  neatly  into  the  pace  of  the 
three  ahead. 

A  lot  of  girls  you  knew  stood  on  the 
bleachers  and  saw  your  disgrace  and  ap- 
plauded enthusiastically  as  Jenkins  broke 
the  tape.  He  was  quite  nice  and  mag- 
nanimous about  it  later  that  afternoon 
when  you  all  met  at  somebody's  tea,  and 
he  said  that,  of  course,  if  a  man  will  go 
to  town  "  fussing  "  just  before  a  race,  go 
to  railroad  stations  and  bother  about  time- 
tables and  get  his  nerves  all  upset  with  the 
noise  of  trains,  and  stand  up  all  the  way 
to  Cambridge — one  always  stands  up,  you 
know,  in  the  Cambridge  cars — why,  of 
course,  he  couldn't  hope  to  be  in  any 
proper  shape  to  run.  One  can't  fuss  and 
keep  fit,  he  said,  with  just  the  shadow  of 
a  wicked  little  smile,  and  he  himself  had 
been  so  ungallant  he  felt  like  a  profes- 
sional,  he  really  did — and  you  grinned 


WITH   THE    HOUNDS  177 

and  ground  your  teeth  and  decided  that 
you  would  never  forgive  him. 

You  decided  also  that  running  was  a 
wretched  humdrum  sport  with  no  sort  of 
fun  in  it  and  that  next  spring  you  would 
go  in  for  baseball  or  cricket  or  something 
in  which  there  was  a  game.  But  you 
never  forgot  that  day  nor  that  race  all 
through  the  summer  vacation.  Every 
time  you  leaped  a  water  hazard  and 
jogged  a  bit  over  the  soft  turf  after  a 
golf  ball  you  thought  of  your  legs  and  the 
spring  in  them  and  when  you  were  trot- 
ting up  and  down  the  beach  between  dips, 
hurdling  the  life-lines  and  behaving  most 
childishly,  you  were  really  thinking  of  the 
last  hundred  yards  of  your  next  race  and 
estimating  the  difference  between  the  feel 
of  sand  and  of  cinders  and  wondering 
each  day  if  you  were  strengthening  your 
wind  and  improving  your  form.  Still 
you  weren't  quite  keen  enough  to  train 
for  the  autumn  games  after  you  came 
back  in  the  fall.  You  played  tennis  in- 
stead, and  loped  a  bit  each  day  after- 
wrirds,  just  enough  to  keep  fit,  and  went 


178  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

to  the  games  as  a  spectator — feeling  very 
fine  with  your  clerk's  badge  and  your 
proper  raiment  and  your  privilege  of 
watching  the  new  Freshmen.  You  got 
enormously  excited  when  the  mile  was 
run  and  you  saw,  for  the  first  time,  just 
how  it  looked  from  the  outside,  and,  as 
they  swung  into  the  stretch  and  one  of 
the  new  men  came  up  from  behind  and 
won,  you  ran  out  and  clapped  him  on  the 
back  and  you  would  have  given  anything 
if  there  had  been  another  race  right  then 
that  you  might  have  thrown  off  your 
clothes  and  gone  in.  You  had  thought 
you'd  never  race  again  and  here  you  were 
suddenly  wishing  it  were  spring. 

The  Indian  summer  faded  and  the 
leaves  began  to  fall.  In  the  early  morn- 
ings the  elms  and  the  ancient  dormitories 
lay  in  a  bluish  opalescence  as  though  they 
were  at  the  bottom  of  a  sea,  a  haze  hung 
in  the  air  by  day,  the  crisp  breath  of 
evening  made  you  think  of  hot  suppers 
and  open  fires  and  all  the  land  smelled 
faintly  of  burning  leaves  and  brush.  One 
morning  you  opened  your  Crimson  and 


WITH   THE   HOUNDS  179 

saw  a  little  two-line  notice  which  said  that 
at  4 130  o'clock  that  afternoon  there  would 
start  from  the  locker-building  the  first 
hare-and-hounds  run  of  the  year.  You 
stood  in  your  pajamas  as  you  read  this, 
with  your  toes  curling  away  from  the  cold 
bare  floor,  but  your  heart  gave  a  percepti- 
ble jump  and  a  hot  glow  swept  up  within 
you.  For  days  the  hazy  autumn  had  been 
calling  you  and  now  at  last  you  heard  the 
call.  And  you  drew  in  a  deep  breath 
and  gave  your  chest  a  thump  and  jumped 
under  your  icy  shower  with  your  teeth 
set,  for  your  blood  was  up  and  you  were 
aching  to  be  up  and  away — away  on  the 
long  liard  trail  'cross  country  with  the 
hounds. 

They  were  an  odd  lot,  those  hounds, 
sitting  on  the  steps  of  the  locker-building 
as  you  trotted  across  the  field  late  that 
afternoon,  shivering  in  their  sweaters, 
waiting  the  word  to  go.  There  were 
brown-legged  Alott  Haven  men,  wearing 
their  initials  inside  out ;  pale  divinity  stu- 
dents with  spectacles,  whose  sense  of  the 
])ro])ricties   demanderl    n.'inncl    sliirts   and 


i8o  A   BREAK   IN  TRAINING 

knickerbockers  and  stockings  and  leather 
shoes,  and  here  and  there  some  mature 
student  of  the  law  who  had  come  down  to 
the  East  from  a  far-off  inland  college  and 
whose  story  of  triumphs,  now  put  aside 
and  forgotten,  was  mutely  told  by  the 
faded  jersey  and  the  tattered  initials  of 
the  college  he  called  his  own.  You  looked 
your  new  friends  over — friends  they  must 
be  to  have  heard  with  you  the  same  call 
— and  at  the  hares,  waiting  the  word  to 
go,  and  the  timers,  muffled  to  their  chins 
in  ulsters,  and  gradually  the  gray  sky 
grew  darker  and  you  hugged  your  bare 
legs  as  hard  little  flakes  of  snow  came 
hurrying  down. 

"  All  right!  "  nodded  somebody  at  last, 
and  the  hares,  slinging  their  bags  of  paper 
clippings  over  their  shoulders,  swung  off 
on  the  trail.  You  watched  them  jog 
easily  across  the  field  and  disappear 
round  the  corner  of  Boylston,  flinging  a 
handful  of  paper  behind  them  as  they 
passed  from  view.  One  minute — two — 
three — four — jiminy  crickets!  how  cold 
it  was — and  you  all  got  up  and  began 


WITH    THE    HOUNDS  1 81 

circling  about  the  timers,  stamping  your 
feet  and  hugging  your  shivering  ribs, 
when — "  Five  minutes !  Go !  "  said  one 
of  them,  and  away  you  went  on  the  trail. 
Two  of  the  old  !\lott  Haven  men  set 
the  pace.  You  fell  in  at  a  comfortable 
distance  behind ;  and  behind,  with  all  sorts 
of  good  and  bad  running,  the  others 
straggled  in  single  file.  Over  the  grass, 
now  specked  with  little  wisps  of  snow, 
you  jogged,  and  down  through  Harvard 
Square.  The  trail  led  straight  through 
the  tangle  of  trucks  and  trolley  cars,  the 
crowd  waiting  at  the  transfer-station 
stared  and  gasped  and  tittered,  and  you 
snuggled  up  to  the  wide  back  of  the  law- 
school  man  just  in  front  of  you  and  were 
glad  there  were  so  many  in  the  pack. 
Down  Boylston  Street  you  jogged  toward 
Soldier's  Field,  round  a  corner,  and  there 
the  trail  suddenly  stopped. 

"  Watch  out,  they've  doubled !  "  the 
leaders  cried.  The  [)ack  scattered  like  a 
lot  of  beagles,  and  anxiously  searched  tht 
ground.  It  was  very  annoying  and  it 
took  up  a  lot  of  time,  but  it  showed  that 


i82  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

the  hares  knew  the  game.  Over  the  top 
of  the  nearest  high  board  fence  popped  the 
heads  of  a  lot  of  Httle  muckers. 

"  Aw,  yer  no  good !  "  they  shrieked  in 
ecstasy.  "  Git  onto  dem  shapes — Yous  '11 
never  ketch  'em !  "  They  felt  very  sure 
of  this,  because,  in  the  five  minutes  that 
had  elapsed  since  the  hares  passed  that 
way  they  had  carefully  picked  up  every 
scrap  of  the  trail  for  a  block  or  more  and 
stuffed  it  in  their  trousers'  pockets.  The 
hounds  were  scurrying  hither  and  thither 
and  you  had  craftily  retraced  your  steps 
to  find  where  the  hares  had  doubled  and 
started  a  new  trail  to  the  northward,  when 
a  very  near-sighted  divinity  student  with 
thick  glasses  picked  up  the  scent  a  block 
or  so  away  in  exactly  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, and  with  rallying  cries  of  "Trail! 
Trail !  Trail !  "  the  pack  closed  up  and 
was  off  again. 

The  hares  were  bothersome  and  shifty. 
They  had  carried  the  trail  through  back- 
yards and  over  pickets,  between  chicken- 
coops  and  stables,  where  the  pack  had 
to  creep  along  the  tops   of   fences  like 


WITH   THE   HOUNDS  183 

SO  many  alleyway  cats.  Your  jersey 
caught  on  barbed  wires,  raspberry  bushes 
scratched  your  bare  shins,  and  every  min- 
nute  or  two  at  some  narrow  gate  or  slit 
in  a  hedgerow  the  hounds,  sifting  through 
two  by  two.  elbowed  and  fumed  as  they 
thought  of  the  hares  running  free  in  the 
open  by  this  time  a  mile  or  so  away. 

For  half  an  hour  the  pack  fretted  thus 
through  darkest  Cambridge,  until,  at  last, 
they  emerged  into  the  open  again,  pat- 
tered across  the  Longwood  bridge  and, 
with  the  cries  of  coxswains  coming 
through  the  distance  and  wherries  and 
singles  shooting  past,  down  stream  with 
the  tide,  you  stumbled  into  the  marshy 
lowlands  that  edge  the  Charles. 

It  was  real  running  now.  Your  feet 
caught  in  the  tufts  of  wiry  grass  and 
every  now  and  then  you  slumped  down 
to  your  knees  into  a  muddy  pocket  of  ice 
water.  The  quick  weariness  of  the  first 
three  miles — the  hardest  stretch  of  a  ten- 
mile  run — took  hold  and  took  hold  hard. 
You  caught  a  glimpse  from  across  the 
river  of  a  crew  just  lifting  their  dripping 


184  A    BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

shell  over  their  heads,  and  as  the  water 
splashed  on  the  boathouse  float  you 
wished  you  could  get  some  of  it  too.  The 
sweat  was  coming  out  on  your  forehead 
as  you  swung  at  last  into  the  road  again ; 
It  was  running  into  your  eyes  as  the  pack 
trailed  across  Soldier's  Field.  The  great 
amphitheater  was  silent  and  deserted  now 
and  with  nothing  to  break  the  stillness 
but  the  puffs  of  breath  and  the  muffled 
tread  you  filed  across  the  gridiron. 

After  the  pack  had  passed  the  field  the 
town  gave  way  to  scattered  houses,  and 
the  houses  to  open  fields  and  scraps  of 
woodland,  and  finally  you  found  yourself 
in  the  open  country.    Trot-trot,  trot-trot, 
uphill  and  down,  scrambling  over  boul- 
ders and  stones,  pushing  through  thickets 
and  brushwood,  the  pace  kept  up  unceas- 
mgly.    The  line  began  to  stretch  out  now. 
From  the  top  of  each  rise  of  ground  you 
could  see  the  slower  ones  pulling  up  the 
slope  behind  you,  while  ahead  for  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  the  leaders  were  carrying  a 
broken  line  of  vivid  crimson  and  white 
out  into  the  hazy  distance.     Your  blood. 


WITH   THE    HOUNDS  185 

slowly  and  surely  heated  by  the  three- 
mile  pull,  now  burned  evenly  to  your 
very  finger-tips.  The  heat  of  it  made  you 
laugh  at  the  frosty  air,  smoothed  out 
every  kink  in  your  body,  melted  away  the 
weight  that  had  pulled  on  your  chest  until 
your  lungs  worked  as  easily  as  a  fish's 
gills  and  the  rich  fruity  air  sank  to  the 
very  bottom  of  them.  As  you  felt  your 
arms,  moving  like  pendulums,  low  and 
steadily,  and  your  legs  stepping  light  and 
evenly,  and  drank  in  the  wine  of  the 
autumn  air  in  great  conscious  breaths  you 
began  to  know  your  strength  and  be  sure 
of  it,  and  you  looked  from  each  hilltop 
over  the  long  trail  yet  to  be  traveled  re- 
joicing, and  there  seemed  in  all  the  world 
nothing  worth  while  but  straight  limbs 
and  clean  thoughts  and  stout  hearts  and 
the  free  and  open  country.  And  you 
understood  what  it  means  to  say  that  the 
sport  is  bigger  than  the  victory  and  that 
it  is  not  just  to  break  a  tape  a  few  inches 
in  front  of  another  man  that  one  goes  in 
to  train.  For  what  a  good  and  glorious 
thing  it  is — the  mere  running!     The  lift 


1 86  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

and  thrust  of  the  thigh,  the  rhythm  of 
untrammelecl  motion !  The  catch  of  the 
foot  on  the  pathway,  the  tireless  buoyant 
progression !  When  the  air  strikes  deep 
in  the  chest,  the  arms  lift  with  the  leg- 
thrust  and  the  muscles  all  sing  the  same 
rhythm !  The  regular  strides  on  the  level, 
the  in-bend  as  one  sweeps  round  a  town, 
the  relentless  pace  up  a  hillside,  when  the 
feet  grip  the  ground  as  the  fingers  grip 
the  rope  in  hand-over-hand  climbing! 
The  run  on  the  beach  in  the  summer,  alone 
with  the  gold  and  azure!  Or  this  long 
trail  homeward  in  the  autumn  when  the 
frost's  in  the  air  and  call  answers  call 
through  the  twilight!  What  a  good  and 
glorious  thing  it  is — the  mere  running ! 

The  gray  November  day  grew  grayer 
and  lights  began  to  sparkle  through  the 
twilight.  You  forgot  your  bare  legs  and 
flimsy  running  clothes,  and  each  of  the 
hounds  became  merely  one  of  the  pack. 
Now  you  scrambled  up  a  gravelly  gully 
where  the  workmen  straightened  up  from 
their  shovels  and  stared  open-mouthed; 
now    you    swung    through    a    farmyard 


WITH   THE    HOUNDS  187 

where  the  chickens  scattered  squawking 
and  the  girls  of  the  house  stood  in  the 
kitchen  doors  laughing  as  you  passed. 
Now  you  swished  through  an  orchard, 
ducking  the  low  branches  and  plowing 
through  the  crackling  leaves.  Your  foot 
struck  something  round  and  hard  and  you 
snatched  up  an  apple  from  its  wrapping 
of  frosty  grass  which  was  like  wine  in 
your  cottony  mouth  and  tasted  of  the 
autumn  and  the  out-of-doors  as  only  an 
apple  can  taste  which  has  mellowed  under 
its  own  leaves  and  been  cooled  and  sweet- 
ened by  frost. 

Over  the  orchard  wall  and  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  hill  the  trail  led,  straight  to  a 
brook  too  wide  to  jump  and  without  a 
bridge.  The  gang  of  small  boys  waiting 
there  assured  you  earnestly  that  there 
"  wasn't  nothin'  nearer  than  the  railroad 
bridge,"  full  half  a  mile  away.  You 
knew  they  were  lying,  but  the  darkness 
was  closing  in  rapidly  now,  there  was  no 
time  to  waste,  so  into  the  black  water  the 
sweating  pack  plunged,  hip-deep,  just  as 
the  frosty  night  was  beginning  to  weave 


l88  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

a  fringe  of  ice  along  the  edges.  You 
thought  of  Valley  Forge  and  the  retreat 
from  Moscow  as  you  scrambled  up  the 
opposite  bank  and  the  wind  struck  your 
dripping  legs,  but  before  the  water  had 
time  to  freeze  it  had  dried  off  from  you 
as  it  would  from  a  stove,  and  you  were 
pounding  down  the  trail  again  no  worse 
for  your  ducking. 

Alongside  a  wall  the  path  led  presently, 
through  an  arched  stone  gateway,  up  a 
drive  and  into  a  wood.  As  you  peered 
after  the  faint  scent  there  suddenly  came 
a  blood-chilling  baying  through  the  gloom 
and  a  couple  of  great  dogs — regular  Lit- 
tle-Eva hounds  with  spiked  collars — 
leaped  toward  you  between  the  trees.  The 
pack  huddled  back  to  back  like  ponies 
attacked  by  wolves.  You  thought  of  your 
bare  legs.  There  was  a  call,  a  rattling  of 
chains.  A  convent  grounds,  somebody 
said.  Then  the  trail  was  picked  up  again 
and  the  pack  hurried  on. 

The  late  November  darkness  closed 
rapidly  down  around  you  now.  The 
specks  of  the  trail  could  scarcely  be  dis- 


WITH   THE   HOUNDS  189 

tinguished  from  the  flakes  of  snow  on  the 
grass  tufts  and  the  pack  felt  its  way  along 
slowly,  with  heads  bent  and  eyes  search- 
ing the  ground.  Every  few  minutes 
there  was  a  halt  and  plaintive  wails  of 
"  Lo-o-ost  Tra-a-ail !  Lo-o-ost  Tra-a-ail !" 
and  then  from  somewhere  off  in  the  dark- 
ness came  at  last  the  clear  halloo  of  some 
keen-eyed  veteran,  "  Tally  Ho!  Ta-a-ally 
Ho-0-0 !  "  Giving  tongue  the  pack  closed 
in  again,  and  again  was  up  and  away. 
You  stumbled  out  of  the  woods  and  fields 
at  last,  and  as  you  struck  an  open  road  the 
leaders  quietly  hit  up  the  pace.  You 
could  see  the  line — not  so  long  as  it  was, 
some  still  toiling  back  there  in  the  woods 
— swing  under  the  white  glare  of  an  arc 
lamp  and  suddenly  the  road  turned  and 
you  found  yourself  in  one  of  those  flinty 
macadam  avenues  that  lead  straight  into 
town.  The  country  disappeared  as  at  the 
fall  of  a  drop  curtain,  rows  of  yellow  gas- 
lamps  crossed  each  other  in  the  middle 
distance,  and  down  toward  the  glow 
where  the  town  lay  the  arc  lamps  of  the 
avenue  stretched  like  a  string  of  stars. 


I90  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Now  there  was  work  ahead  of  you. 
All  afternoon  you  had  had  chances  to  loaf 
— when  the  nervous  pack  were  held  at  a 
fence  or  hedge-row,  when  the  leaders 
were  thoughtful  enougii  to  walk  uphill, 
or  over  some  of  the  rougher  places,  when 
the  trail  was  lost  in  the  darkness — but 
there  was  none  of  that  now.  For  a  good 
two  miles  down  the  hard  highway  not  a 
bramble  or  brush  or  lost  trail  or  fence 
gave  a  chance  for  soldiering.  Straight 
down  the  road  you  went,  all  in  a  bunch, 
for  none  dared  to  drop  behind  to  come 
wandering  into  Cambridge  alone  that 
night  with  nothing  but  his  running 
clothes  to  cover  him.  All  that  tiresome 
training  for  the  mile  helped  you  now. 
Every  time  that  you  had  ever  driven 
yourself  under  the  trainer's  watch 
through  the  last  two-twenty  of  a  time- 
trial,  when  the  air  was  muggy  as  a  steam 
laundry  and  the  mercury  was  eighty-five 
in  the  shade  and  the  cinders  were  swim- 
ming before  your  eyes,  made  it  so  much 
easier  now  to  look  down  that  long  stretch 
with  easy  confidence,  to  hook  yourself  in 


WITH   THE   HOUNDS  191 

just  behind  the  leaders,  put  your  arms 
and  back  a  bit  more  into  it,  and  laugh 
at  the  pace. 

One  by  one,  as  you  passed  each  corner, 
the  swinging  arc  lamps  slipped  by  over- 
head, steaming  breaths  showing  in  the 
glare  as  the  pack  pounded  across  each 
circle  of  light,  shadows  leaping  ahead  fan- 
tastically as  you  swept  on  again  into  the 
darkness.  Past  trolley-cars,  humming 
out  to  the  suburbs  loaded  to  the  fenders 
with  office  folk  and  pale-faced  clerks, 
past  shop-girls  and  workmen  with  dinner- 
pails,  past  lighted  houses,  through  the 
windows  of  which  you  caught  glimpses 
of  tables  set  for  dinner  and  blazing  open 
fires,  the  pack  sweeps  on.  How  petty, 
cramped  and  absurd  seemed  all  the  boxed- 
up  world  of  rectangular  blocks,  of  narrow 
grooves  called  streets,  of  clothes  and  trol- 
ley-cars !  How  all  the  dust  of  over-civili- 
zation was  brushed  away  as  you  strode 
strongly  on  with  the  steam  of  your  breath 
showing  in  the  lamplight  and  the  sweat 
running  down  your  face.  With  what  a 
straight-eyed  chastity  could  you  sweep  by 


192  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

those  chiffon-and-sachet  women-folk  who 
giggled  at  your  honest  bare  legs  and  coyly 
averted  their  eyes;  with  what  Olympian 
good-humor  could  you  glimpse  that  lily- 
livered  youth  with  a  cigarette  who  glared 
at  you  cynically  as  you  passed,  shivered 
and  wrapped  himself  tighter  in  his  foolish 
ulster.  Maybe  you  would  wear  an  ulster 
some  day,  perhaps  before  to-morrow  you 
would  admit  the  tyranny  of  straight-ruled 
streets  and  clothes,  but  now,  to-night, 
with  your  eight  good  miles  behind  you 
and  the  air  of  the  hills  in  your  lungs  and 
the  fire  of  the  chase  in  your  blood,  now, 
at  least,  you  were  sure  of  yourself  and 
free. 

Through  the  streets  of  Alston,  dodging 
cars  and  trucks,  down  to  the  railroad  sta- 
tion galloped  the  pack,  clattering  down 
through  the  echoing  subway,  up  and 
down  again  on  the  other  side  and  along 
the  road  to  Cambridge.  Through  the 
darkness  to  the  left  you  could  presently 
see  the  gloomy  bulk  of  the  stands  on  Sol- 
dier's Field  and  beyond  that  the  dull  glow- 
ing   of    the    Brattle    Square    clock    and 


WITH   THE   HOUNDS  193 

farther  yet  in  the  distance  the  tower  of 
Memorial.  Suddenly  the  leaders  pulled 
up,  panting.  ''Here  it  is!"  someone 
cried.  The  trail  abruptly  stopped  and  a 
line  of  paper  scraps  was  laid  across  the 
road.  It  was  the  end  of  the  trail — the 
"  break."  From  here  it  was  a  run-in 
home,  a  mile  almost  straightaway — down 
past  Soldier's  Field  and  over  the  bridge, 
up  the  hill  to  the  Square  and  over  to 
the  gymnasium  steps  where  the  timers 
waited.  "  Line  up  for  the  break !  "  called 
the  master  of  the  hounds,  and  he  looked 
back  over  his  shoulder  into  the  darkness, 
panting,  as  he  waited  for  the  duffers  to 
appear. 

As  you  saw  them  toil  slowly  in,  saw 
some  flop  down  at  the  roadside,  and,  lost 
to  vanity,  flat  on  their  backs,  pant  up  at 
the  stars,  saw  the  straight  road  stretch- 
ing ahead  relentlessly  and  thought  of 
leaping  off  as  though  you  were  starting 
a  quarter-mile  dash  instead  of  finishing — 
who  should  come  jogging  up  out  of  the 
darkness  from  the  direction  of  the  Square, 
out  for  an  ante-dinner  bit  of  exercise. 


194  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

with  a  running  mate  in  a  crew  sweater 
beside  him,  but  your  friend  Jenkins. 

"  Hello!  "  said  he,  "  what's  up?  Lem- 
me  pace  you  in !  " 

"Pace!"  you  cried.  "I'll  race  you 
in!  "  and  you  took  your  place  on  the  line. 
You'd  put  nine  miles  behind  you  and  he 
was  fresh  from  his  little  jog  down  the 
street,  but  your  blood  was  hot  and  your 
fighting  edge  was  up  and  every  piston- 
shaft  and  cog-wheel  in  your  carcass  work- 
ing together  like  a  well-oiled  and  exquis- 
itely adjusted  machine. 

"  A  race  it  is !  "  grinned  Jenkins,  and 
he  pushed  in  beside  you,  toeing  the  break. 

"  Are  you  ready?  "  demanded  the  mas- 
ter of  the  hounds,  looking  along  the  line. 
"Go!" 

The  pack  broke  like  thoroughbreds  at 
the  flinging-up  of  the  barrier.  At  least 
that's  the  way  it  seemed  to  you.  Your 
legs,  gauged  to  the  easy,  'cross-country 
pace,  seemed  tied  down  and  weighted  as 
you  tried  suddenly  to  lift  them  into  the 
long,  high  strides  of  the  sprint  home. 
Your  chest,   which   but   a   moment   ago 


WITH   THE   HOUNDS  195 

drank  in  the  cool  air  to  its  very  depths, 
closed  on  each  breath  now  before  you'd 
scarcely  caught  it  in  your  throat.  The 
taste  of  the  out-of-doors  vanished  and 
the  air  became  raw  and  hot  and  rough. 
But  again  your  training  helped  and  the 
dogged,  good-work-well-done-behind-you 
weariness  of  the  nine-mile  run  was  quite 
another  sort  of  thing  from  that  hollow- 
sided  distress  that  comes  when  the  cold 
blood  first  meets  the  shock  of  the  cinder- 
path  dash. 

Jenkins,  fresh  as  a  lark  and  cocky  with 
his  warming,  started  out  at  a  four-forty 
clip.  You  hooked  your  eyes  to  his  back 
and  lifted  your  heavy  legs  into  a  longer 
stride.  He  zvill,  will  he!  It  was  more 
than  a  sprint  from  here  to  the  gymnasium 
and  you'd  not  learned  to  turn  off  your 
ten  miles  for  nothing.  He  ivill,  will 
he — ar-r-rh ! — Up,  guards,  and  at  'em  ;  to 
hell  with  Yale ;  lay  on  Macduff,  and  the 
devil  take  the  hindmost!  You  saw  the 
Soldier's  Field  gate  slip  by  and  the  bridge 
and  the  boathouse,  and  now  you  were 
pulling  up  the  hill  toward  the  lights  of 


196  A    BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

Harvard  Square.  On  and  on  you  went, 
hungrily,  with  your  legs  eating  up  the 
distance  with  the  speed  that  darkness 
seems  to  give.  Far  behind  were  the  most 
of  the  pack  and  those  in  front  kept  slip- 
ping nearer.  You  overhauled  them,  one 
by  one,  suddenly  bore  hard  for  a  dozen 
strides — "  Take  that !  "  you  said  under 
your  breath — and  slipped  past. 

As  you  passed  Mount  Auburn  Street 
there  were  only  three  ahead  of  you,  the 
master  of  the  hounds,  one  of  the  Mott 
Haven  veterans  and  that  nimble  Jenkins. 
The  pace  and  the  long  pull  uphill  from 
the  river  were  telling  on  him  now;  you 
could  see  his  shoulders  pumping  into  it 
and — and — yes,  his  arms  were  going  up 
and  his  chin  slewing  round.  Straight 
through  the  Square  you  plunged  rough- 
shod, through  the  crowd  waiting  with 
their  transfers  and  with  half  a  dozen  trol- 
ley-car gongs  banging  unheard  in  your 
ears,  and  then  suddenly,  only  a  furlong 
away,  you  saw  the  lights  of  the  gym  and 
knew  that  the  race  was  almost  done.  As 
you  caught  sight  of  them  a  quick  exult- 


WITH   THE    HOUNDS  197 

ant  strength  lifted  through  you.  All  the 
charm  and  mystery  of  the  autumn,  the 
rough-shod  dash  through  wood  and 
water,  the  thrill  of  the  chase  came  back 
in  a  whirl.  You  quite  forgot  yourself, 
an  amazing  recklessness  seized  you  and 
you  turned  everything  loose.  "  Take 
that — and  that — and  that!"  and  across 
the  Square  you  swept,  leaped  the  gutter 
to  the  pathway  past  the  Yard,  passed  the 
third  man  and  were  blowing  your  breath 
on  Jenkins's  neck.  Past  Massachusetts 
and  Harvard  you  strode,  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  and  then  you  bore  on  hard  again 
and  you  heard  his  breath  behind  you,  and 
there  was  nobody  ahead  but  the  master 
of  the  hounds.  Him  you  overhauled  just 
as  you  reached  the  close-set  posts  of 
the  gymnasium;  you  flipped  through 
together,  but  he  lost  his  stride,  and,  taking 
it  on  the  fly,  you  finished  out  the  last 
dozen  steps  ahead  and  dropped  on  the 
steps  a  winner. 

You  will  undoubtedly  become  rich  and 
famous  in  your  day  and  have  your  mo- 
ments  of  triumph   here  and   there,   but 


198  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

you'll  be  lucky  if  you  ever  have  more  fun 
than  you  had  then,  as  you  sat  on  the  cold 
stone  steps  panting  and  hot  and  happy, 
and  watched  with  the  crowd  as  the  others 
pumped  in  out  of  the  darkness,  and  fin- 
ished one  by  one,  Jenkins  was  fourth. 
"Good  work!"  he  gasped,  slumping 
down  on  the  steps  beside  you  and  drop- 
ping his-  damp  head  against  your  shoul- 
der.   "I'm  down  and  out !  " 

"  You  weren't  warmed  up  enough," 
you  laughed.  "  You  know  we'd  been 
going  it  for  an  hour  or  two." 

"And  finish  like  that?"  he  panted. 
"  I've  got  all  /  want.  I'm  not  in  your 
class."  And  as  Jenkins  happened  to  be 
your  room-mate  and  able  to  put  it  all 
over  you  any  day  in  the  sprints,  you 
pulled  him  to  his  feet  and  decided  to  for- 
give him  after  all,  and  the  two  of  you 
went  down  to  the  baths  together. 

The  cup  was  not  a  very  big  one,  but  it 
looked  very  well  that  night  as  it  stood  on 
your  study  table  under  the  glow  of  the 
big  lamp.  You  stretched  out  in  your  big 
chair,  deliciously  tired,  with  a  soothing, 


WITH    THE    HOUNDS  199 

somnolent  fire  burning  drowsily  through 
and  through  you,  and  ran  the  long  run 
over  again.  It  was,  indeed,  a  little  cup, 
but  it  didn't  remind  you  of  seasick  fin- 
ishes as  some  of  your  other  prizes  did, 
and  the  older  it  got  the  dearer  it  was  to 
grow.  And  years  afterwards,  when  more 
than  a  path  of  scattered  papers  were 
needed  to  take  you  back  to  the  old  lost 
trail,  when  it  was  a  far  cry  to  the  open 
country,  and  all  that  you  could  see  from 
your  window  were  rows  of  dingy  brick, 
and  all  that  you  could  hear  was  the  roar 
of  trucks  and  "  L  "  trains  and  trolley- 
cars,  you  had  but  to  look  at  that  tarnished 
old  mug  and  again  you  were  swinging 
with  the  hounds  through  the  frosty  au- 
tumn, again  you  caught  the  smell  of  burn- 
ing leaves  and  brush  and  heard  again 
through  the  twilight  the  long-drawn  cry 
of  "Tally-ho!   Ta-a-ally!  Ho-oho!" 


It 


THE    MEN    THEY    USED 
TO    BE 


THE    MEN    THEY    USED 
TO    BE 

JUST  around  the  corner  from  Madison 
Square,  and  only  half  a  stone's  throw 
from  the  avenue  and  the  pattering  han- 
soms, is  a  little,  low,  brick  stable-building 
in  the  face  of  which  are  two  or  three  steps 
and  a  door.  If  you  enter  this  door  and 
climb  up  the  old  wooden  stairs,  you  will 
come  to  a  dingy,  carpeted  locker-room, 
the  walls  of  which  are  hung  with  old 
framed  photographs  of  groups  of  ancient 
athletes,  with  solemn  faces  and  side- 
whiskers,  like  those  who  used  to  row 
when  six  men  made  a  crew.  If  you 
climb  a  ladder — precisely  like  the  ladders 
that  grow  on  the  sides  of  haymows  in  the 
country — you  will  emerge  in  an  old  gym- 
nasium. The  apparatus  is  of  a  pattern 
different  from  that  in  the  gym  at  college; 
203 


204  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

you  bathe  in  a  little  sort  of  cupboard  by 
filling  pails  from  a  faucet  and  pouring 
them  over  your  head ;  and  every  time  you 
covertly  open  a  window  in  the  hope  of 
diluting  an  atmosphere  in  which  are  curi- 
ously balanced  the  smell  of  the  stable  and 
the  vague  but  depressing  odor  of  mere 
antiquity,  it  always  closes  mysteriously 
behind  your  back,  like  wounds  in  some 
invulnerable  dragon. 

Here,  of  a  morning,  you  will  find  the 
brothers  De  Mar,  from  the  music-hall  a 
few  blocks  away,  laboriously  practicing, 
in  dingy  neglige,  the  feats  with  which 
they  nightly  electrify  the  simple  audience 
on  the  other  side  of  the  footlights.  Or, 
perhaps,  Feveril  Fortescue,  idol  of  the 
matinees,  is  devoting  his  genius  to  his 
biceps,  against  lijs  appearance  in  the  win- 
ter, bare-armed,  in  the  toga  of  Ben  Hur. 
In  the  afternoon  strange  victims  of  avoir- 
dupois or  the  latest  method  of  physical 
culture  trot  stubbornly  around  the  little 
padded  track.  Now  and  then  enters  the 
dark,  devious,  muscle-bound  youth,  with 
a  strap  about  his  wrist,  who  solemnly  ele- 


THE   MEN   THEY    USED   TO    BE      205 

vates  an  enormous  iron  dumb-bell  over  his 
head  a  dozen  times  or  so — a  slowly  smold- 
ering cigarette  hanging  from  the  corner 
of  his  mouth  the  while — and  then  as  sol- 
emnly retires,  his  exercise  and  sport  over 
for  the  day. 

Speaking  in  the  language  of  other  juve- 
nile ailments,  you  "  get  "  Wood's  in  your 
first  autumn  after  you  have  come  down 
from  college  to  town.  With  the  first 
warm  breath  of  the  following  spring, 
if  not  before,  you  get  over  it.  After- 
ward, when  someone  tells  you  that  he  has 
solved  the  office  slave's  problem  of  con- 
tinuing the  undergraduate's  regulation 
ante-dinner  sweat-cold-shower-and-rub- 
down,  and  begins  to  describe  that  classic 
loft, — "  hardly  a  step  from  one's  room," 
"  right  on  your  way  up  town," — you  have 
the  serene  pleasure  of  wagging  your  head 
sympathetically  and  saying,  "  Yes — yes, 
I  know ;  /  had  it  once." 

Halloway  was  beginning  to  feel  just 
about  that  way.  He  was  an  easy-going 
young  man  with  a  tall  and  very  powerful 
body,  with  which  he  could  do  a  great 


2o6  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

many  things  easily  and  exceedingly  well. 
He  was  one  of  those  men  who  are  so  valu- 
able to  their  college  that  to  go  in  for  the 
teams  is  a  matter  not  so  much  of  pleasure 
as  of  duty;  and  what  with  playing  half- 
back every  autumn,  jumping  in  the  indoor 
winter  games,  and  training  on  down  to 
the  intercollegiate  to  win  his  consistent 
firsts  in  the  mile  in  the  dual  meet  and  at 
Mott  Haven,  Halloway  was  quite  glad 
enough  to  cut  it  all  out  when  he  came 
down  to  town,  to  live  his  own  lazy  way, 
eating  as  much  and  sleeping  as  little  as 
he  chose,  and  expending  all  his  energy 
in  rearing  the  foundations  for  the  house 
in  town  and  country,  the  stable  and 
steam-yacht,  which  seem  to  lie  just  over 
the  horizon  when  one  is  starting  in  the 
Street.  It  one  day  came  across  him,  har- 
rowingly,  that  he  was  actually  getting 
fat;  and  as  he  was  not  particularly  keen 
for  the  Seventh  or  the  Squadron,  and  not 
temperamentally  inclined  for  the  "  ear- 
nest-worker "  gyms,  he  drifted  into 
Wood's.  It  was  only  a  couple  of  blocks 
or  so  from  home,  and,  as  Halloway  ob- 


THE    MEN   THEY   USED   TO    BE      207 

served,  "  I  suppose  a  man  really  ought  to 
do  something." 

The  winter  was  nearly  over  when  he 
began  to  drop  in  of  afternoons  to  juggle 
pulley-weights  for  a  lonesome  half -hour. 
Presently,  as  the  days  grew  warmer,  he 
decided  that  one  day  of  this,  in  the  middle 
of  the  week,  with  thirty-six  holes  of  golf 
at  the  end  of  it,  was  enough  exercise  for  a 
city  man.  Then  a  day  came  when  he  de- 
cided that,  after  all,  even  that  wasn't 
worth  while.  It  was  a  warm,  pretty  day, 
the  tulips  were  blooming  in  Madison 
Square,  and  even  in  Broadway  one  could 
tell  that  the  spring  had  come  in  the  country. 

Halloway  had  swung  over  the  old  row- 
ing-machines for  an  imaginary  mile  or 
two,  taken  a  turn  around  the  little  thirty- 
lap  track,  and  finally  flopped  down  on 
one  of  the  mats.  As  he  flung  his  arms 
back  over  his  head  and  closed  his  eyes  on 
a  couple  of  double-chinned  hippopotami 
who  were  struggling  with  a  medicine- 
ball,  he  thought  of  the  days  when  it  had 
seemed  to  him  "  work  "  to  go  out  on  a 
rolled  cinder-path  and   run  a  fifty-yard 


2o8  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

trial.  Yes,  they  were  all  out  of  doors 
now — the  runners  on  the  track;  the  nine 
was  getting  its  tan  on  the  field;  and  the 
crew  men  were  rowing  on  the  river.  He 
could  hear  the  crack  of  the  cricket-bats 
over  under  the  Willows,  and  see  the  white 
figures  of  the  tennis-players  flashing  in 
the  afternoon  sun,  and  breathe  the  odor 

of  the  fresh  grass,  and The  nervous, 

fretful  squeaking  of  a  rickety  pulley- 
weight  woke  him  back  to  daylight.  Hal- 
loway  rolled  over  lazily  and,  with  his 
head  still  resting  on  his  bare  arm,  watched 
the  man  who  was  making  the  noise. 

What  an  odd  little  windfall  he  was — 
undersized  and  knobby-jointed,  with  flat, 
thin  arms  and  legs,  like  those  of  a  boy 
mysteriously  grown  old!  Squeakity- 
squeak!  squeakity-squeak!  went  the  pul- 
ley-weights; and,  as  his  arms  came  up 
and  the  veins  showed  very  blue  through 
the  white  skin,  the  little  chap  stared  down 
at  his  biceps  with  an  air  of  mingled  pride 
and  grave  concern.  He  was  bald  about 
the  temples,  there  was  a  red  spectacle- 
mark  across  his  nose,  and  his  face  had 


THE   MEN   THEY   USED   TO   BE      209 

that  curiously  gaunt,  blue  look  which 
comes  when  a  thick  black  beard,  closely 
shaven,  shows  through  a  pallid  skin. 
Squeakity-squeak !  Halloway  watched 
the  little  chap's  arms  absent-mindedly, 
thinking  of  different  folk's  ideas  of  exer- 
cise and  sport,  and  of  how  this  man 
seemed  to  epitomize  all  that  was  mere 
muscle-making  and  lifeless  and  liltless 
and  leaden,  when  something  in  his  mo- 
tions caught  his  eye.  Why,  sure  enough, 
it  was !  The  solemn  little  man  was  doing 
the  old  Mott  Haven  pulley- weight  drill. 
Every  year,  following  some  occult  un- 
written law,  the  men  who  led  the  gym 
squads  in  the  winter  go  through  the  same 
series  of  boresome  juggleries.  And  an 
old  trackman  will  start  off  on  the  drill 
the  moment  his  fingers  touch  the  chest- 
weight  handles,  just  as  instinctively  as  a 
veteran  brings  his  hand  to  his  forehead 
when  some  one  cries  "  Salute!  " 

Presently  the  little  man  dropped  the 
weights  and  went  over  to  the  track.  The 
moment  that  he  stepped  off  Halloway  saw 
tliat  he  knew  how  to  run.     There  were 


210  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

several  on  the  tiny  oval  already — a  gray- 
haired,  purple-faced  ice-wagon,  pounding 
round  and  round  in  an  endeavor  to  re- 
duce weight ;  a  "  strong  man  "  in  tights 
and  velvet  trunks  and  with  a  torso  bowed 
and  knotted  with  muscle,  who  scuffled 
along  flat-footed  and  shamelessly,  an 
irony  in  flesh ;  but  the  little  windfall  chap 
strode  daintily  and,  as  it  were,  disdain- 
fully, past  them  all,  his  toes  touching  the 
track  lightly,  his  arms  and  back  in  the 
rhythm,  all  of  him  well  in  hand.  How 
potent  an  eloquence  there  may  be  in  the 
mere  holding  of  a  pair  of  reins,  the  hand- 
ling of  an  oar !  What  little  things  strike 
the  spark  of  sport's  freemasonry  when 
the  "  know  "  comes  out  in  a  man  and 
proves  him  not  a  duffer;  Halloway 
watched  the  little  man  until  he  had 
sprinted  around  the  last  two  turns  of  his 
twenty-lap  jog,  and  then  he  smiled  to 
himself : 

"  Why,  he's  not  such  a  bad  sort,  after 
all!" 

When  he  had  taken  his  water-bucket 
shower  and  pattered  back  to  his  locker, 


THE    MEN   THEY   USED  TO   BE      211 

he  found  the  Httle  man  seated  on  the 
bench,  solemnly  lubricating  his  limbs  with 
wintergreen  oil.  Halloway,  burnishing 
off  his  left  shoulder  with  a  rough  towel, 
looked  down  at  him. 

"  What's  your  time  for  the  mile  ?  "  he 
inquired. 

The  little  fellow  started,  and  a  quick 
smile  crinkled  his  wizened  face.  He 
looked  like  one  who  suddenly  hears  his 
own  language  spoken  in  a  strange  land. 
But  he  caught  himself  quickly. 

"  Never  was  timed,"  he  said.  "  Half's 
my  distance." 

"  Oh !  "  said  Halloway,  respectfully, 
"  I  wasn't  quite  sure.  I  thought  your 
stride  looked  like  a  miler's." 

He  meant  that  the  little  man  wasn't  at 
all  the  sort  to  run  a  fast  half-mile.  He 
had  neither  the  quick  strength  nor  the 
stride.  The  little  man  nodded  in  a  pleased 
way. 

"  Well,  you  see,  I'm  not  much  good," 
he  explained.  There  was  something  rem- 
iniscent about  his  face,  and  Halloway 
felt  vaguely  that  he  had  seen  him  before. 


212  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

The  little  man  pointed  to  the  floor  over- 
head, whence  came  the  dull  thumping  of 
the  exercisers,  and  shrugged  his  shoulders 
wearily. 

"  You're  the  first  man — why,  what 
made  you  think  I  could  run  ?  " 

"  I  used  to  run  a  little  bit  myself.  I 
know  what  it  looks  like,  all  right.  And 
then  I  saw  you  at  the  pulley-weights," 
smiled  Halloway.  "  Nobody  ever  forgets 
that." 

The  little  man's  face  lighted  up  with  a 
"  Then  you  were  there,  too,"  and  all  at 
once  Halloway  recalled  the  ridiculous 
two-mile  handicap  that  was  run  in  the  last 
spring  meet  of  his  freshman  year.  At  the 
limit — two  hundred  yards — was  a  gorilla- 
like hammer-thrower  who  was  getting  in 
shape  for  the  all-round  championships, 
and  beside  him  a  little  unknown — one  of 
those  mysterious  beings  whom  one  meets 
in  class-rooms  and  sees  now  and  then  in 
the  Yard,  who  come  from  nowhere,  know 
nobody,  and  presently  vanish,  none  knows 
whither.  It  was  very  droll  to  see  the  two 
start  off  side  by  side  and  be  overtaken  by 


THE   MEN   THEY   USED   TO    BE      213 

the  scratch  man  before  the  half-mile  was 
run.  And  it  was  droU  to  see  the  big  man 
fall  back,  and  back,  and  come  plowing  in 
after  every  one  had  forgotten  him.  But 
the  drollest  part  was  to  see  the  little  man, 
not  knowing  at  all  when  he  was  beaten, 
hook  right  on  to  the  leaders  as  they 
passed  him,  and  finish,  all  out  and  dead 
to  the  world,  fifth  or  sixth,  just  missing 
a  place. 

"Yes,"  said  Halloway;  "I  was  up 
there,  too."  The  little  man  tossed  his 
towel  into  the  locker, — the  second-tier 
lockers  at  Wood's  are  as  high  as  one's 
head, — and  something  like  a  coin  with  a 
bit  of  ribbon  attached  to  it  dropped  out 
on  the  floor.  Before  he  could  pick  it  up, 
Halloway  had  seen  that  it  was  a  medal, 
and,  as  he  looked  over  at  the  little  man, 
the  latter  was  blushing. 

"  I  always  keep  it  here,"  he  said  in  an 
embarrassed  way.  "  You  see,  I  live  in 
one  of  those  hall  bedrooms — in  a  board- 
ing-house; and  there's  a  corset  drummer 
lives  over  me  that's  always  coming  down 
to    borrow    matches    and    ask    questions 


214  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

about  things  in  my  room,  and  there's  a 
fat  woman  in  the  room  next  to  me  who 
stays  there  all  day  and  comes  in  and  reads 
my  letters  when  I'm  gone.  Oh,  I  know 
she  does — I  can  smell  her  perfumery  on 
'em.  Well,  now,  you  don't  want  these 
women — well,  damn  it  all!  there's  some 
things  you  don't  want  these  people  to  paw 
over  and  see.  And  besides,"  he  added, 
after  pausing  for  Halloway's  grin  of 
assent,  "  I'd  rather  have  anything  like 
that  here.  It  kind  of  gives  you  a  brace. 
It  makes  things  seem  more  real." 

"  Sort  of  sporting  shrine,"  smiled 
Halloway. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  little  man,  looking 
hard  at  him ;  "  that's  about  it.  That  just 
about  says  it."  He  took  the  medal  out 
of  the  locker  again  and  turned  it  over  and 
over  in  his  hand.  "  It  isn't  gold ;  the  gilt 
is  almost  worn  off  on  this  side.  Maybe  it's 
tin  for  all  I  know.  You  see,"  he  explained 
carefully,  "  they  weren't — that  is,  they 
were  mucker  games."  He  waited  again  for 
Halloway's  nod  of  approval.  "  You  see, 
I  had  run  in  a  two-mile  handicap  and  I 


THE    MEN   THEY   USED   TO    BE      215 

finished  fifth.  That  was  from  the  limit — 
pretty  near  half-way  around  the  track. 
Well,  that  was  the  best  Fd  ever  run,  and 
it  was  the  last  chance  I'd  ever  have,  and 
along  came  these  mucker  games.  I  saw 
a  notice  of  'em  in  the  paper  one  day — 
open  handicap — over  in  East  Somerville. 
And  so  I  went  in,  and  on  that  last  race — 
you  know  how  they  try  to  stick  you  if 
they  know  you're  from  out  there — they 
put  me  at  scratch."  The  little  man  wrig- 
gled his  shoulders  and  grinned  all  over. 
"Think  of  that,"  he  said— "  scratch ! 
And  they  had  no  policeman  to  watch  the 
fence,  and  so  everybody  climbed  over,  and 
nobody  paid  at  the  gate,  and  there  wasn't 
any  money,  and — and  so  we  got  tin 
medals."  There  was  quite  a  flush  on  the 
little  man's  face  and  his  eyes  were  ex- 
cited. He  wasn't  at  all  the  little  man  who 
had  been  going  through  the  pulley-weight 
drill  with  gritted  teeth. 

"  And  you  won  ?  "  asked  Halloway. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  little  man ;  "  I  won — 
from  scratch.  Do  you  know  what  that 
means — to  win  from  scratch  ?  " 


2l6  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  said  Halloway.  He 
had  won  his  initial  in  his  freshman  year. 
"Great,  isn't  it!" 

"You  bet  your  life  it's  great!"  said 
the  little  man. 

He  was  almost  dressed  by  this  time, 
and  he  turned  round  from  the  glass  in 
front  of  which  he  had  been  tying  his  tie 
and  examined  Halloway  for  an  instant 
to  see  that  he  wasn't  being  laughed  at. 
"  That  day,"  said  he,  "  that  race— why, 
that  was  the  biggest  thing  that  ever  hap- 
pened to  me !  "  Halloway  nodded  respect- 
fully. There  weren't  very  many  big 
things  happening  to  the  little  man  now- 
adays, thought  Halloway — the  little  man 
wasn't  exactly  one  of  your  Napoleons,  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing — your  man  born  to 
the  purple. 

"  It's  good  enough  just  to  be  able  to 
run,"  cried  the  little  man — "  just  to  have 
the  strength  and  the  wind.  It's  better 
yet  to  run  in  a  good  race  and  be  beaten 
out  by  a  better  man ;  but  to  start  off 
from  scratch,  with  men  just  as  good  as 
you  are,  and  you  just  as  good  as  they  are. 


THE   MEN   THEY    USED   TO   BE      217 

and  to  jump  out  and  run  'em  off  their 
feet " 

"  That's  something,"  assented  Hallo- 
way. 

"  You  see,  I  had  had  plenty  of  the  other 
thing,  and — and  I  knew.  I  knew  what  it 
was  to  go  in  time  after  time,  without  a 
ghost  of  a  show,  and  your  heart  going 
like  a  steam-riveter,  and  your  mouth  all 
cotton,  and  feeling  about  as  game  as  a 
man  who  didn't  know  how  to  box  would 
feel  standing  up  in  a  twelve-foot  ring 
against  Jim  Jeffries.  I  knew  what  it 
was  to  run  yourself  out  race  after  race 
and  come  wabbling  in  after  the  crowd 
had  closed  in  across  the  track  and  the 
men  who  got  places  were  trotting  off 
to  the  locker-building.  It  doesn't  do  you 
any  good  to  tumble  in  a  heap  then.  There 
isn't  even  a  gallery  to  see  it."  The  little 
man  had  grown  flushed  as  he  talked,  and 
he  shook  his  head  and  snapped  his  eyes 
excitedly  as  he  rushed  on. 

"  It  wasn't  so  much  fun  running  in 
that  handicap,  on  the  limit-mark  with  a 
man  twice  your  size,  as  though  you  were 


2i8  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

a  Tom  Thumb  and  the  giant  in  a  side 
show.  I  knew  what  the  crowd  thought, 
and  I  could  hear  'em  laughing  across  the 
field,  while  we  waited  there  for  the  pistol. 
And  every  time  we  passed  the  stands  they 
yelled,  '  Go  it ! '  and  things  like  that.  Oh, 
that  was  a  whole  lot  of  fun,  that  was ! 

"  But  this  day "  he  paused  for  a 

moment,  affecting  a  fine  air  of  careless- 
ness as  to  what  he  was  saying,  and  tossed 
his  running-things  into  the  locker — "  this 
day,"  he  repeated,  "I  was  as  good  as 
any  of  'em.  I  ran  and  I  won,  and  I  won 
from  scratch.  It  was  a  queer  crowd 
there  that  day,  muckers  and  all,  strag- 
gling along  the  track.  But  they  were 
mine,  all  mine,  and  the  yells  were 
mine,  and  the  look  of  the  men  coming 
back  toward  me  when  I  began  to  move 
up  round  the  lower  turn,  and  the  little 
brush  as  I  passed  'em,  and  the  tape  there 
across  the  track,  with  nobody  in  front, 
and  the  knowing,  all  at  once,  that  I  had 
'em  beaten  and  nothing  on  earth  could 
stop  me — that  was  mine,  all  mine ! " 
The    little    man    caught    himself    and 


THE   MEN   THEY   USED   TO    BE      219 

Stopped.  "  I'm  no  wonder,  you  know," 
he  said ;  "  I  know  that.  But  that  thing's 
done,  and  you  can  put  your  finger  on  it. 
And  they  can't  take  that  away  from  me, 
can  they?    That's  mine." 

"  You're  right,"  assented  Halloway, 
smiling  to  himself  as  he  thought  of  the 
many  times  that  he  had  done  what  the 
little  man  had  done  but  once,  and  of  the 
mantelpiece  lined  with  cups  in  his  room 
at  home  which  he  had  quite  forgotten 
these  many  months ;  "  they  can't  take  that 
away." 

They  left  the  stuffy  locker-room  and 
walked  together  down  the  old  wooden 
stairs.  The  warm  spring  sun  was  still 
bright,  and  Halloway  shook  his  shoulders 
and  took  a  deep  breath  as  they  came  into 
the  open  and  he  felt  the  gay  flutter  and 
patter  of  the  avenue  only  half  a  block 
away.  But  the  little  man  stared  straight 
ahead  of  him,  and  a  tired  look  crossed  his 
eyes. 

"  No,"  he  echoed ;  "  they  can't  take  that 
away.  But  this — "  he  swept  his  hand 
out  bitterly  toward  the  walls  across  the 


220  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

street,  toward  the  wilderness  of  brick,  and 
the  dull,  persistent  roar  of  the  city  that 
hemmed  them  in — "  this  can  take  away 
something.  It's  an  alarm-clock  jerks  you 
into  it, — when  you've  forgotten, — and  it's 
a  desk  and  an  electric  light  over  your 
head  when  the  sun  is  shining  outside  in 
the  morning,  and  it's  hanging  on  to  a 
strap  in  the  '  L '  train  with  the  crowd 
reading  the  murders  and  suicides  in  the 
papers  going  home.  And  then — it's  the 
boarding-house  again  and  the  people — 
and  nobody  speaks  your  language  and  no- 
body can  understand.  I  come  up  here 
every  afternoon, — it  seems  as  though  you 
ought  to  hang  on  to  it  somehow, — but  it 
goes — it  keeps  a-going — and  I  can't  make 
it  feel  the  same," 

They  had  just  reached  the  avenue  now, 
and,  as  the  little  man's  voice  ran  down 
and  paused,  Halloway  took  his  arm — 
and  very  thin  and  queer  it  felt,  too, 
against  his  own  solid  one — and  swung 
him  along  uptown. 

"  All  you  want  is  a  little  vacation,"  he 
said.    "  Work  is  an  awful  bore." 


THE   MEN   THEY   USED   TO    BE      221 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  that !  "  cried  the  little  man. 
''It  isn't  the  work;  it's  the  forgetting. 
It's  when  you  begin  to  lose  interest.  It's 
when  you  don't  care  whether  you're  stoop- 
shouldered  or  straight,  when  you  don't 
care  whether  you've  got  any  legs  or  not, 
when  you  think  more  of  whether  your 
trousers  are  pressed  than  whether  the  legs 
are  right  inside  'em.  Oh,  it's  when  you 
get  to  be  just  a  clothes-figure  with  a 
thinking-machine  on  top,  and  let  all  the 
poetry  in  your  body  shrivel  up  and  die! 
And  your  arms,  and  all  the  pull  and 
thrust  in  'em,  and  your  legs,  and  all  the 
spring  and  stride  in  'em,  become  just  bag- 
gage to  carry  around.  You've  run — you 
know  what  it  is — just  the  way  your  feet 
catch  the  ground  and  swing  you  on,  just 
the  way  a  piece  of  level  meadow  where 
the  grass  is  short,  or  a  smooth  stretch  of 
soft  roadway,  will  call  out  to  you ! 

"  And  yet  I've  seen  the  day,"  said  the 
little  man,  solemnly — "  I've  seen  the  day 
when  I've  envied  some  old  bag  of  bones, 
with  two  feet  in  the  grave,  just  because 
he  rode  up  the  Sound  every  night  in  a 


222  A   BREAK   IN   TRAINING 

steam-yacht;  or  some  fat-faced  elephant, 
who'd  die  of  apoplexy  if  he  ran  a  block, 
just  because,  when  I  was  walking  uptown 
some  hot  night  after  work,  I'd  meet  him 
blowing  down  the  avenue  in  an  automo- 
bile— just  in  from  the  country,  with  a  lit- 
tle tan  on  his  face !  " 

Halloway  stopped  suddenly  and  looked 
down  at  the  little  man. 

"  By  the  way,"  he  said,  "  what  have — 
have  you  got  to  do  anything  next  Sun- 
day?   I  mean "    He  was  thinking  of 

their  place  on  the  Sound,  and  the  saddle- 
horses  in  the  stable,  and  the  links  just 
beyond  the  woods,  and  the  knockabout 
floating  in  the  cove — and  that  he  didn't 
even  know  the  little  man's  name.  "  I 
mean,"  stammered  Halloway,  "  we'll  talk 
it  over — and — and — come  along  in  and 
have  a  little  snifter." 

"  Thank  you— but  I  don't  believe " 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  do,"  laughed  Halloway. 
"  It'll  do  you  good."  And  he  pushed  the 
little  man  in  ahead  of  him — into  a  room 
the  windows  of  which  opened  on  the 
Avenue,  and  where  the  men,   sitting  at 


THE   MEN   THEY    USED   TO    BE      223 

little  tables,  to  whom  Halloway  nodded, 
glanced  inquiringly  at  his  companion,  as 
though  to  ask  who  that  might  be  he  had 
in  tow,  with  the  faded  face  and  the  spec- 
tacles and  the  quaint  store-clothes.  Hal- 
loway tapped  a  bell  and  gave  the  orders, 
and,  dropping  into  a  broad-armed  wicker 
chair,  gazed  out  at  the  bright  stream  of 
carriages  and  hansoms  and  the  people 
flowing  by.  For  a  moment  they  sat  in 
silence,  and  then  he  turned  toward  the 
little  man  and  then  looked  back,  with  a 
shrug  of  the  shoulders,  into  the  street. 

"  There  they  are,"  he  said,  "  and  there 
they'll  always  be,  with  their  dinners  and 
their  huzz-buzz  and  their  theaters  and  the 
rest.  And  here  we  are,  in  the  cage,  and 
we  can't  get  out.  And  we've  got  to  become 
pillars  of  society  and  all  that — and  re- 
member that  we  aren't  antelopes  or 
Indians — and  forget  for  a  good  many 
hours  each  day  that  there's  sunshine  and 
blue  water  and  a  wind  blowing,  some- 
where, across  the  moor,  and  things  like 
that.  And  they'll  never  learn  to  speak 
our  language,  and  we've  got  to  learn  to 


224  A   BREAK    IN   TRAINING 

Speak  theirs.  And — "  Halloway  smiled 
and  shrugged  his  shoulders  slightly — "  it 
isn't  such  a  bad  one,  either,  when  you  get 
used  to  it;  and  the  funny  part  is — the 
funny  part  is,  how  quick  you  do."  He 
reached  for  his  glass  and  twirled  the  stem 
slowly  between  his  fingers. 

"  We're  getting  old,"  said  he,  and  he 
smiled  as  he  thought  of  his  own  freshness 
and  lazy  strength ;  of  his  father  as  he 
looked  seated  in  his  club  window,  ruddy, 
solidly  powerful,  and  good-humoredly  at 
ease;  of  his  grandfather,  smartest  of  the 
three  in  a  way — gaunt,  fine,  erect,  taking 
his  hour  each  morning  on  the  bridle-path 
in  the  park.  "  We're  getting  old," 
repeated  Halloway,  slowly,  and  the 
bloom's  going;  but  we'll  hang  on  to  what 
we  have  left,  and — and  here's  to  the  men 
we  once  were!  " 

The  little  man  stared  hard  at  Halloway, 
and  raised  his  glass  with  a  kind  of  timid 
smile. 

"  Sir,  to  you !  "  he  said  gravely.  "  '  The 
men  we  once  were ! '  " 

THE    KND 


DATE  DUE 

NOV  6 

979 

CAYLORD 

PRINTEO  IN  O.S.A. 

